The Skill AI Can’t Replace

Today, every AI company CEO suggests that software development will soon be reduced to prompting. What they forget to tell you is one crucial thing: AI models are just huge probabilistic machines.

An LLM is like a drunk genius. It knows a lot, but you wouldn’t let it drive. Worse, it will never tell you when it doesn’t know something. It will confidently make things up.

That’s why knowing your fundamentals still matters.

You need to recognize when an LLM’s answer is slightly off, or when it’s a straight-up hallucination. When a vibe-coding session quietly derails into a tangled mess of unusable code. When an app looks like it works, but it’s really just a generic UI sitting on top of mock data. Or worse, when AI-generated code goes live, gets hacked within days, and you’re the one facing the consequences.

AI is here to stay. It’s a powerful tool. But it’s still just a tool. You need to stay behind the wheel, tell it exactly what to do, and review every step it takes.

That’s also why understanding software structure and design matters more than ever.

It lets you reason about a system before code exists. It helps you spot design problems early and guide AI rather than blindly following it.

If you want to strengthen that mental model, this is exactly why I created my UML and Object-Oriented Design Foundations course: https://learnwithkarl.teachable.com/p/uml-and-object-oriented-design-foundations?coupon_code=4STUDENTS&product_id=5213086

My advice hasn’t changed: keep learning the foundations. Make sure you understand what good software actually looks like.

AI can 10x your output. Whether that means 10x more bugs and security holes, or 10x faster delivery of solid, maintainable software is still up to you—and your skills.