Agreed.

It's clear to me as a more seasoned engineer that I can prompt the LLM to do what I want (more or less) and it will catch generally small errors in my approach before I spend time trying them. I don't often feel like I ended up in a different place than I would have on my own. I just ended up there faster, making fewer concessions along the way.

I do worry I'll become lazy and spoiled. And then lose access to the LLM and feel crippled. That's concerning. I also worry that others aren't reading the patches the AI generates like I am before opening PRs, which is also concerning.