Is AI Creating a Generation of Developers Who Can’t Debug?

July 22, 2025

Is AI Creating a Generation of Developers Who Can’t Debug?

In a recent viral discussion among tech professionals, a senior Machine Learning engineer has raised a red flag about the rising dependency on AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot — suggesting that we’re heading toward a crisis in developer quality.

According to the engineer, by 2026, we may witness the first major wave of job losses among AI-native developers — those who heavily rely on generative AI to write code but lack the foundational understanding to debug or explain it.

What’s Changing in Developer Culture?

Instead of learning to code from scratch, many junior developers now follow a risky pattern:

Paste code from AI

Lack understanding of how it works

Fail to debug when it breaks

Deliver incomplete or unstable projects

The concern is that AI-generated code often fails under real-world production pressure. And when it does, some developers are stuck — unable to resolve issues without the AI itself.

Demand Rising for ‘Pre-AI’ Developers

The engineer warns that by 2027, the industry will start favoring developers who learned coding fundamentals before the AI boom. These professionals — capable of reasoning through problems, debugging independently, and building full systems — will be in high demand, almost like artisans in a hyper-automated world.

Team Risk: When AI Models Fail

With AI models sometimes producing hallucinated outputs or experiencing downtime, teams over-dependent on these tools risk complete standstill. Leaders must now ask themselves:
“Are we building problem-solvers or just prompt engineers?”

Developer Community Reacts

Many professionals agree.
“Copying a few lines is fine if you understand it,” one dev shared.
“But blindly pasting entire blocks without context? That’s dangerous.”

The future might not be about AI replacing developers — but about developers who can intelligently pair with AI, not depend entirely on it.