AI Overreliance Is Quietly Eroding Foundational Coding Skills, Educators Warn

A computer science professor has observed a steady decline in the technical proficiency of young developers, attributing it to their habit of outsourcing problem-solving to AI tools before attempting to think through challenges independently. Unlike previous generational skill gaps, this shift is being witnessed directly through successive cohorts of interns who can produce working code but lack genuine understanding of it. The concern is not AI use itself, but its misuse as a shortcut that bypasses the effortful learning process that builds real competence. Experts warn this could create a long-term "scissor effect" where AI grows more capable while the pool of developers able to supervise, correct, or extend it shrinks. The prediction is a widening divide between a large group of AI-dependent coders and a smaller, highly valued cohort who retain deep technical fundamentals.