I pair program with AI now. Not as a gimmick — as my actual daily workflow.

GitHub Copilot writes the boilerplate. Claude helps me think through architecture decisions. I use AI to generate test cases I wouldn't have thought of. And I write the core logic, review everything, and make the judgment calls.

My productivity has genuinely doubled. Not because AI writes perfect code — it doesn't. But because the ratio of "thinking about interesting problems" to "typing predictable code" has shifted dramatically.

The engineers who resist AI coding tools remind me of engineers who resisted IDEs in the 2000s. "Real programmers use Notepad." Sure. And real programmers also spent 30% of their time typing import statements.

But here's the nuance: blindly accepting AI-generated code is worse than not using it at all. I review every suggestion. I understand every line. The AI proposes, I decide.

Think of it as having a very fast, occasionally wrong junior developer who never gets tired. You still need to be the senior engineer in the room.

If you're not using AI coding tools yet, try it for a week. Your workflow will never be the same.