The Human-in-the-Loop Is Tired: Why AI Makes Programming More Exhausting

The Human-in-the-Loop Is Tired

Programming with LLMs is genuinely useful but destabilizing, creating a unique fatigue from constant supervision rather than creation. While AI automates the satisfying parts of coding, it leaves developers managing incoherent outputs and losing the dopamine hits of solving problems. This shift intensifies work, isolates teams, and breaks the natural feedback loop, turning the craft into a lonely, exhausting cycle of review and correction.

"Programming with an LLM is an intensely solitary activity where the satisfying part shrank, the exhausting part grew, and there are no new rewards to fill the gap."