I read something this morning that scared me. For once it wasn't a valuation.
There's a new word going around. Never-skilling.
It came out of medical schools. The idea: if a young doctor leans on AI from day one, they never actually learn to be a doctor. They can get the answer. They just can't get there themselves.
Deskilling is forgetting how. Never-skilling is never knowing how.
And bro. That's me. That might be me.
I'm a vibe coder. I make things by asking Claude to make them and nodding like I followed along. I never built the instinct. I built the habit of asking.
So this morning, out of pride, I tried to do one thing alone. No AI.
I picked: center a div. Anyone who has ever coded is already laughing.
I opened the file. I looked at the code. The code looked back.
We've never spoken the same language, me and the code. Claude always did the translating.
So I sat there. A long, ugly while.
Tried a thing. Wrong. Tried another. Worse. Looked stuff up like it was 2009.
And then.
The div.
Centered.
By me. With these hands. No robot in the room.
I stood up so fast I scared the plant.
Did it take 15 minutes Claude would've done in 5 seconds? Yes. But the instinct was in there after all, buried under a year of asking nicely.
Meanwhile the AI keeps getting better, not worse.
OpenAI's turning ChatGPT into an ad platform. Product photos, buttons, little star ratings. So the thing slowly replacing my brain would now also like to sell me a coffee maker.
It knows mine died. Of course it knows.
Cool. Marketed to by my own crutch.
And Claude can run a small business now. Invoicing, payroll, contracts, all of it.
The AI does payroll. I do a vibe. And, as of today, one centered div.
So here's the truth. I'll say it once.
I might be a little never-skilled. But not all the way. Not yet.
Sit with the hard thing long enough and the part you forgot you knew comes back.
Today it was a div.
Tomorrow, who knows. Maybe the coffee maker.
And you'll be here for it.
See you tomorrow.
-Melly