Claim◆Article
AI doesn't actually make work easier, and using it should force you to think just as hard or harder — so be deliberate about which skills you're willing to let atrophy.
Orosz says he avoids AI entirely in his writing to protect that skill, while accepting his hand-coding ability will degrade since he does use AI there, urging others to make similar conscious tradeoffs. ✦ AI generated
Gergely Orosz · The Pragmatic Engineer · 2026-07-08 · original ↗
If you're using AI and life seems to be getting a lot easier, it raises the question: are you trying hard enough? Personally, using AI forces me to think just as hard, or even harder than before. I choose to use zero AI in my writing for the Pragmatic Engineer, and Grammarly is turned off as well.
Read full article ↗excerpt · fair-use quotation
- ·If life feels easier with AI, are you trying hard enough?
- ·Using AI should force thinking as hard or harder than before
- ·Not a shortcut — a tool demanding more rigor
- ·Uses zero AI for writing at The Pragmatic Engineer
- ·Even turns off Grammarly to preserve writing skill
- ·Accepts hand-coding ability will degrade since he uses AI there
- ·Urges others to make deliberate skill tradeoffs
Around this claim
Evidence · 2
Sustainable AI-assisted workflows require deliberate scoping of ambition and intentional engagement rather than letting AI do all the work.Aaron Francis · Syntax · conf 75%Current frontier AI agents remain far from reliable at long-horizon, multi-program computer-use tasks, with the best-performing setup reaching only 20.6% binary accuracy on OSWORLD 2.0, though rapid improvement is likely given how quickly scores rose on OSWORLD 1.0.OSWorld 2.0 researchers · Import AI · conf 60%