'Using AI is cheating'

1. The wrong framing

"Using AI is cheating" is the wrong sentence. It treats AI use as a binary moral question — do you use it, yes or no — and the binary is incoherent. Of course you use it. Everyone uses it. The interesting question is what for.

The real failure mode isn't using AI. It is using AI in the one specific way that prevents learning: as a hands replacement, when what you needed was a teacher.

2. The two uses, plainly

Imagine two ways of working with AI on the same task.

Use one: "Build me a function that does X." The AI writes a function. You paste it. It works. You ship.

Use two: "I want to do X. Walk me through the three reasonable approaches and explain the tradeoffs. Then I'll write it." The AI walks you through. You write it. It works. You ship.

Same outcome, same time. Vastly different effect on you.

In the first version, the AI did the part of the work that would have taught you something — the choosing, the considering, the writing. You skipped the only minute of the task with learning in it.

In the second version, you did all that. You also learned what the alternatives were, why the one you picked was right, and what to watch for next time.

3. The cleaner question

Replace "is using AI cheating?" with this:

Did I use AI in a way that left me smarter, or in a way that left me dependent?

Answer it honestly after each session. The first kind compounds. The second kind hollows you out — slowly enough that you don't notice until a stranger asks you to explain your own code.

4. Try it

The "couldn't have written" part is your next thing to learn. Not by avoiding AI next time — by using it as a teacher for that specific gap.