100% disagree with the "stick your head in the sand" defense of AI exposure. Instead, use it to understand along the way.

I had to learn coding when a reference book was all I had to help when I got stuck. Then the Google and StackOverflow came and people complained about no-knowledge coders copy-pasting their way through tasks. AI is just an extension of that.

Yes, you can push out 5,000 line PRs blindly, but you can also use AI to help you speed past blockers, to investigate why things are structured in a certain way, explain what a block of code is doing, propose 3 alternative approaches and explain each, etc.

We say "coding is only part of what a SWE does" but you can't do the rest without understanding what the code is doing and meant to do, and why.