If learning about individual cogs is what's important, and once you've done that it's okay to move on and let AI do it, than you can build the specific thing you want to learn about in detail in isolation, as a learning project — like many programmers already do, and many CS courses already require — perhaps on your own, or perhaps following along with a substantial book on the matter; then once you've gained that understanding, you can move on to other things in projects that aren't focused on learning about that thing.