AI is an autocomplete for the mind

Tool or not There is an interesting discussion happening right now around whether AI is a tool or not. The core argument seems to be the necessary skill. People argue that sufficiently advanced AIs will require no skill to use; thus they are not tools. Now while this argument could be true in a hypothetical future, I do not find it correct for the current state of AI. The current best usage of AI seems to be the centaur. A symbiosis of a skilled software engineer and AI can achieve far better results than either could alone. I've been working as a centaur for quite some time and I find it to require a lot of skills; in fact I would argue I had to learn a lot more about architecture, frameworks, system design and requirements engineering than ever before. Experience as a centaur I have evidence for this, as I work with junior engineers, who are massively worse at the centaur lifestyle. In fact the less technical skill someone has, the more AI dominates them. AI fills in the blanks and…