How AI Impacts Skill Formation · HackerPapers discussions

How AI Impacts Skill Formation — HN submission

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 17:08:20 GMT

Show HN: Shikhu – Understand the code your agents write

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 tool that would make it easy to re-build habits around learning, while complementing workflows that…

1 point; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

How AI Impacts Skill Formation — mentioned by simonw

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 18:51:44 GMT

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 were asked to perform a basic coding task That's this study here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.20245 - also written about on the Anthropic research site here: https://www.anthropic.com/research/AI-assistance-coding-skil...

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

How AI Impacts Skill Formation — mentioned by keeda

Fri, 22 May 2026 23:32:18 GMT

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 listed in the meta-study, which is pretty frank about its limitations. (Note the snippets about positive biases in the conclusion.) It is going more for quantity over quality and is transparent about the statistical findings of each one (or lack thereof; see the count of "Not reported"s.) All these references have a…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

How AI Impacts Skill Formation — mentioned by keeda

Fri, 22 May 2026 21:22:33 GMT

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. https://arxiv.org/html/2601.20245v2 -- Anthropic's study, same as above except supplementary use (like clarifying concepts) can actually be beneficial. https://scale.stanford.edu/ai/repository/ai-meets-classroom-... -- "Students who use LLMs as personal tutors by conversing about the topic and asking for explanations benefit from…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

How AI Impacts Skill Formation — mentioned by samusiam

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 02:17:46 GMT

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

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

How AI Impacts Skill Formation — mentioned by i_am_proteus

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 13:52:59 GMT

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.

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

How AI Impacts Skill Formation — HN submission

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:06:47 GMT

How AI impacts skill formation

236 points; 5 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.