Why AI code looks right until it isn't

Better Developers

When I think about AI writing code on my behalf, I keep landing on the same metaphor. It's like a chainsaw: in experienced hands, it does wonders, and in untrained ones, it's dangerous.

I first touched this stuff a long time ago. I took an AI course during my undergraduate years at MIT, learning about cutting-edge AI research, and found it quite lacking. I did a bit of research at MIT's AI Lab myself, and saw firsthand how hard language recognition was.

Lately I keep meeting developers who barely touch code, using AI to write it on their behalf. Reading up on the Model Context Protocol recently, I had Claude give me completely incorrect information about how it works. Only providing counter-examples got Claude to admit I was right, and it was wrong.

That's the thing about AI and code. The code runs, it compiles, sometimes it even produces output that looks correct. And then the day comes when the output is wrong in a way you can't spot because you never learned how the underlying thing works.

So don't believe the hype, that you don't need to learn to program because we're now in an age of AI. You still need to learn it, maybe more than ever before.

I built LernerPython around the idea that if you want to work alongside AI without being wrong in ways you can't see, you need a real mental model of how the language works, plus someone at the other end of an email address when your mental model runs into reality.

The courses go under the hood, and the exercises push you to use what you're learning between sessions. The office hours are where the questions that don't fit in documentation get answered.

Vaidyanathan, a DevOps engineer who's been a member for a while, described why he signed up this way: "I signed up for a membership mainly to understand the nuances of Python and Git. The courses are simple and easy to understand. The exercises are very helpful. And the fact that Reuven is reachable for any queries is a big plus."

That's what I keep hearing. They want to understand what's happening under the hood, and they want a person they can ask when they get stuck. Both of those still matter, AI or no AI.

If you've been wondering whether LernerPython is the right place to learn Python the way I teach it, the 14-day free trial lets you find out for yourself. Try LernerPython for 14 Days. You won't be charged until the trial is over, and canceling is straightforward.

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