I tried to write a little project the way an AI would, going gung-ho and not stopping to ask if this is a good design. It actually went okay and now I have a silly thing that wouldn't exist otherwise. It was still slower than an AI, but only took a few days and now I know how the thing works inside, which I wouldn't if I used AI. I don't think programmers can't match AI, I think we don't want the associated responsibility of knowing we might be building a pile of shit. I think we want to avoid writing a pile of shit so we slow way the heck down.

This is also the way I wrote programs when I barely knew how to program btw and I got stuff done then.

Think about doing carpentry by nailing planks together in roughly the pattern you want, rather than meticulously drawing and then cutting outlines - which I have also done. The first iteration (of that carpentry project) fell apart the moment I tried to use it and was a miserable experience because I still had to complete the task with the pieces, and didn't have the opportunity to go back to fix it. The second iteration, which still just took a couple of days to build, was much stronger and was awesome. It can be fun and get results that are obviously acceptable because they are what the AI would have output anyway.

Actually, just for curiosity, I just asked ChatGPT how to make the thing I made, and ironically it's doing a big design up front process where it wants to know all sorts of parameters first before it will tell me anything. So my "AI mode" was more direct than an actual AI! It also wanted me to buy a welding machine even though the thing can be made just fine, better even, out of wood. Maybe that's that new product advertisement feature.