I am not happy about GenAI progress affecting my career though I am excited about its application for personalized learning. How do you use LLMs to learn advanced technical stuff better?

e.g., socratic method

I don’t typically use AI when programming.

When putting my perf tests behind a setTimeout I found I could push my WebSocket message send speed from 3,250,000 messages per second to about 3,250,000 messages in about 0.002 seconds. I did not believe the numbers so I asked about this on IRC. People said my perf must be broken and I should use AI to find the error. After a few factual corrections about the code Claude confirmed the numbers as valid.

I love the question. I haven't been too intentional in LLM driven learning but for code I do like to get the LLM to make the code and then I review it closely making sure I understand it. Question it etc.

Socratic method seems like a good idea maybe there are skills out there for it.

I've had a bit of success building little games. Not exactly what you'd consider "advanced technical stuff", but I used AI to help me get better at reading the water for fly fishing.

For more technical stuff, like deep database expertise, I used it probably like you do, just tons of follow-ups, ELI5 commands, etc.