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arXiv:2601.20245cs.CY

How AI Impacts Skill Formation

Judy Hanwen Shen, Alex Tamkin

Abstract

AI assistance produces significant productivity gains across professional domains, particularly for novice workers. Yet how this assistance affects the development of skills required to effectively supervise AI remains unclear. Novice workers who rely heavily on AI to complete unfamiliar tasks may compromise their own skill acquisition in the process. We conduct randomized experiments to study how developers gained mastery of a new asynchronous programming library with and without the assistance of AI. We find that AI use impairs conceptual understanding, code reading, and debugging abilities, without delivering significant efficiency gains on average. Participants who fully delegated coding tasks showed some productivity improvements, but at the cost of learning the library. We identify six distinct AI interaction patterns, three of which involve cognitive engagement and preserve learning outcomes even when participants receive AI assistance. Our findings suggest that AI-enhanced productivity is not a shortcut to competence and AI assistance should be carefully adopted into workflows to preserve skill formation -- particularly in safety-critical domains.

arXiv comments
V2: Fixed typos in Table 1 (Balance Table), corrected osf link
Journal reference
DOI
Subjects
cs.CYComputers and Society cs.AIArtificial Intelligence cs.HCHuman-Computer Interaction

On Hacker News

Linked by 4 identifiable commenters in 5 comments across 4 threads, from Jan 2026 to Jun 2026. Found in 2 HN submissions from Jan 2026 to Jun 2026. Open submission discussions.

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Discussed in comments4 threads

  1. Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in – and they're not good 1 comment

    • The bit about computer science (behind the paywall) starts: > To investigate whether skills are being lost in the field of computer science, researchers at the AI firm Anthropic in San Francisco, California, designed a randomized controlled trial in which 52 software engineers…

      simonwView on HNParent context

  2. AI has a multiplying effect on existing technical skills 2 comments

    • For coding specifically (there are many studies out there by now, but I know of these offhand): https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/10/4115 -- probably the earliest one of its kind, finds over-reliance degrades critical skills but supplementary use is mostly harmless.…

      keedaView on HNParent context

    • I hadn't looked at that study you selected, but yeah the methodology conflicts with the abstract (Also it low-key seems to be an ad for "Flexi 2.0.") It does seems to be a shady paper, with a small N and in a journal of questionable repute. That said, there are 80+ other studies…

      keedaView on HNParent context

  3. Will vibe coding end like the maker movement? 1 comment

    • It doesn't have to reduce understanding. It completely depends on how you use it. See, for example, this study https://arxiv.org/html/2601.20245v2

      samusiamView on HNParent context

  4. How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills 1 comment

    • TLDR from the paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.20245) >We find that AI use impairs conceptual understanding, code reading, and debugging abilities, without delivering significant efficiency gains on average.

      i_am_proteusView on HNParent context

Submitted to Hacker News

  • How AI impacts skill formation236 points5 comments
  • Show HN: Shikhu – Understand the code your agents write1 point0 comments

    Agents write code really well, but it can get hard to understand what they've written and why. Shikhu is a CLI tool and Agent Skill that facilitates learning your code through self-quizzing, transcript analysis, and validation flows. I'm Arjun, I'm currently a developer advocate at Pinecone, and I use agents to code a lot! I enjoy using agents to code, but I've been feeling like I've lost some conceptual learning and understanding that comes with writing the code yourself. I wanted to make a…

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