You are absolutely right. I work as Robotics Engineer at autonomous company. I use cursor and currently using gpt-5-high for coding. When I started out coding for my project 3 years ago there was no AI coding. I had to learn how to code by reading lots of docs and reading lots & lots of code(nav2 stack). This gave me the sense of how code is architected, why it is the way it is, etc. I also try to not blindly follow any code I see but every single piece of code I critically ask lots of questions(this made me crazy, good kind). This helped me to learn extremely fast. So the point is "everyone must know when their brain is being used and when not. If your brain is not being used at anytime of a project then you are probably out of loop".

The thing about AI is when it started out(coding models) they were kinda bad. But I feel any tool that provides value to time or effort is a useful tool. I use AI now mostly to add some methods, ask questions about the code base and brainstorm ideas against that code base. There are levels on how you use this tool(AI).

1. Complete trust(if its easy task and you can verify quickly). 2. medium trust( you ask questions back to AI to critically understand why it did what it did). 3. zero trust.(this is very important for learning fast, not coding. You need to stress AI to give me lots of information, right or wrong, cross-check it manually and soak it in your brain carefully. Here you will know whether that AI is good or bad.)

Conclusion: We are human beings. Any tool must be used with caution, especially AI that is capable of playing tricks with your precious brain. Build razor sharp instincts and trust them ONLY.