Ask HN: Copilot Makes Me Dumb
4 ynarwal__ 6 7/24/2025, 12:44:58 AM
I've been noticing that Copilot is basically hijacking my problem-solving process. Instead of working through challenges myself, I find myself just going with whatever it suggests, even when I haven't fully thought the problem through. It's making me mentally lazy.
The constant suggestions feel like having someone looking over your shoulder, blurting out answers before you've even finished forming the question. Really breaks your concentration and stops you from developing your own solutions.
I'm thinking of disabling it for a while, maybe permanently. Don't get me wrong - LLMs are incredibly useful for development work, but only when I deliberately choose to use them. Having them always on feels like it's weakening my ability to think independently.
Curious what others on HN think about this. Anyone else feeling like these tools are changing how they approach problems?
It also walks you through changes one by one and lets you approve them. It beats the typical PR process via github because you go through it in logical order - why this code is here, etc.
But LLMs have been invaluable for those kinds of problems that don’t make any sense where I have to dismantle everything just to figure it out, with the full knowledge that I will kick myself once I figure out what it is. LLMs have helped me troubleshoot those issues much faster and with significantly less frustration.
If an LLM can do it, it’s “undifferentiated heavy lifting” that doesn’t add value by my typing it out myself.
I’m no more going to stop using LLM based coding assistants in 2025 than I’m going to stop using compilers instead of programming in assembly like I did in the mid 80s