> Juniors want this to be a chance to shine in a market that otherwise rejected them.

I actually am training 2 trainees (Azubi in German) and 1 working student. All three are somewhat anxious about the future but also all are learning in a significantly increased pace, compared to the ones I worked with 1.5 years ago.

They don't have to wait for random senior to answer questions, so they get stuck way less often. They aren't allowed to use AI to generate code though, so not sure how that'd look like learning-wise if we/they went all-in on AI.

Is that a good thing? I think getting stuck is an intrinsic part of the learning process and sometimes it's good that there isn't an immediate answer from a senior. For some things you'd never have solved yourself, sure. But pain and suffering is a big and important chunk of learning and I fear we just throw it all out of the window with asking AI.

I am skeptical. This is a testable hypothesis, and I know there have been tons of research done trying to provide evidence of claims like these. However I have yet to see a convincing evidence. If this statement was indeed true, I think experimental data backing it up would be old news at this point, it however is not, and I suspect that is because junior developers are by and large in fact not learning faster or more with the help of AI.