Ask HN: What AI tools do you use to boost productivity?

There's nothing for my job that I can use it for. I am a programmer. I have been doing it for over a decade now. The majority of my job is spent in existing codebases. So, using ChatGPT or copilot actually gets in my way. Most of the time the job is simple enough I don't need it. It's more of an exercise is not letting boredom win. When it's more complicated I still don't need it because the structure and purpose of the code, how it fits into the existing code, and what exactly I want it to do is something ChatGPT can't help me with. At my experience level syntax, algorithms, and patterns are stored in the L1 cache I call my brain. When I need a reminder of something obscure its still faster for me to grok documents (because I know where to look) than it is to ask ChatGPT for a contrived example.

It might be nice for generating boilerplate or helping a junior developer get up to speed faster. I won't pay for any AI tools. There has been no situation so far where I've had to scratch my head for so long that it would've been easier to do with ChatGPT. Unfortunately, the life of a programmer is mostly boring with short periods of absolute chaos. Honestly, I wish I had a job that created interesting hard problems where ChatGPT meaningfully contributes to my work.

And my reasoning could be a strange one. My knowledge of mathematics (esp. probability and statistics) and algorithms, and my memory used to be pretty sharp. I could retain a lot of information, and perform fast manual calculations using log book. All that started to deteriorate when I started relying on search engines for everything. No doubt it was convenient, but I lost touch with foundational concepts. My memory and speed are not what they used to be.

So as long as I can. I’m going to keep co-pilots and ai/tools at bay.