This is where education comes in. When we come cross a certain scale, we should know that O(n) comes into play, and study existing literature before trying to naively solve the problem. What would happen if the "AI" and web search didn't return anything? Would you have stuck with your implementation? What if you couldn't find a library with a usable license?
Once I had to look up a research paper to implement a computational geometry algorithm because I couldn't find it any of the typical Web sources. There were also no library to use with a license for our commercial use.
I'm not against use of "AI". But this increasing refusal of those who aspire to work in specialist domains like software development to systematically learn things is not great. That's just compounding on an already diminished capacity to process information skillfully.
In my context, the scale is small. It just passed the threshold where a naive implementation would be just fine.
> What would happen if the "AI" and web search didn't return anything? Would you have stuck with your implementation?
I was fairly certain there must exist some type of algorithm exactly for this purpose. I would have been flabbergasted if I couldn’t find something on the web. But it that failed, I would have asked friends and cracked open the algorithms textbooks.
> I'm not against use of "AI". But this increasing refusal of those who aspire to work in specialist domains like software development to systematically learn things is not great. That's just compounding on an already diminished capacity to process information skillfully.
I understand what you mean, and agree with you. I can also assure you that that is not how I use it.
There is a time and a place for everything. Software development is often about compromise and often it isn’t feasible to work out a solution from foundational principles and a comprehensive understanding of the domain.
Many developers use libraries effectively without knowing every time consideration of O(n) comes into play.
Competently implemented, in the right context, LLMs can be an effective form of abstraction.