AI 코딩의 숨겨진 비용
The Hidden Cost of AI Coding
AI coding tools boost productivity but may sacrifice the flow state and deep satisfaction developers experience when writing code by hand. What are we losing?
terriblesoftware.org
- AI 코딩 도구 사용이 생산성은 높이지만, 개발자들이 느끼던 몰입과 창조의 기쁨은 줄어드는 현상에 대한 우려를 제기함
- 과거 ‘몰입(flow)’ 상태에서의 코딩 경험이 개발자들에게 큰 만족감을 주었음
- 현재는 AI가 코드 생성을 대신하며, 개발자는 설명하고 평가하는 ‘큐레이터’ 역할에 머무는 경우가 많음
- 이러한 변화로 인해 장기적인 행복감과 직업 만족도 하락 가능성이 제기됨
- 해결책으로는 의도적으로 ‘직접 코딩’의 공간을 남겨두는 노력과 새로운 형태의 만족감 찾기가 필요함
코딩의 즐거움은 어디로 갔을까
- 작성자는 AI 기술의 발전과 긍정적인 측면을 인정하면서도, 개발자로서의 즐거움이 사라지고 있음을 고백함
- 과거에는 헤드폰을 끼고 네오빔을 켜고, 시간 가는 줄 모르고 몰입하던 코딩의 순간들이 있었음
- 단순한 효율이나 보상이 아니라, 문제를 해결하며 무언가를 만들어내는 경험 자체가 본질적인 동기였음
심리학에서 말하는 ‘몰입(flow)’의 가치
- 심리학자 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi의 이론에 따르면, 몰입 상태는 도전과 기술이 적절히 균형 잡힌 순간에 발생
- 개발자에게 이 몰입은 코드와 하나 되는 순간, 문제가 퍼즐처럼 느껴지고, 시간 감각이 사라지는 경험으로 나타남
- 이런 순간들은 단순한 작업이 아니라, 창조성과 직업적 행복감의 핵심임
AI 도구가 바꾼 개발자의 역할
- 현재는 AI 기반 코딩 도구(Copilot, Cursor 등) 덕분에 직접 작성하지 않아도 많은 코드가 생성 가능
- 개발자는 이제 프롬프트 작성, AI 결과 검토, 약간의 수정에 집중하게 됨
- 이로 인해, 과거의 몰입 경험과 창작의 기쁨이 줄어들고 있음
- AI 사용은 생산성은 향상되지만, 그 과정은 더 수동적이고 감정적으로 거리감 있는 경험이 될 수 있음
진짜 걱정: 몰입이 사라진다면?
- 생산성은 향상되지만, 기쁨은 감소하는 이중적 현상은 장기적으로 개발자 만족도에 영향을 줄 수 있음
- 코딩 과정에서의 도전, 창의적 해결, 직접 작성의 성취감이 사라지면, 일 자체의 의미도 흐려질 수 있음
- "프롬프트 엔지니어링"이 새로운 몰입의 대상이 될 수 있을까? 에 대한 의문도 제기됨
새로운 몰입의 방식 찾기
- 미래에는 직접 코딩보다 시스템 설계, 제품 아이디어 구상 등에서 만족감을 찾게 될 수도 있음
- 또는, 의도적으로 비효율적인 ‘손코딩’의 시간을 확보함으로써 몰입 공간을 유지할 수도 있음
- 중요한 것은, AI 시대에도 개발자로서의 행복과 몰입을 지키기 위한 의식적인 선택이 필요하다는 것
https://terriblesoftware.org/2025/04/23/the-hidden-cost-of-ai-coding/

The Hidden Cost of AI Coding
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
I know I’ve posted some upbeat content about AI before, celebrating its potential and encouraging teams to embrace these tools. And honestly, I still believe in that future. But today I want to share something more personal, more nuanced — the one thing that currently worries me most about using AI for software development: lack of joy.
It’s easy to talk about productivity gains, competitive advantages, and how AI will reshape our industry. We’ve had those conversations. What’s harder to discuss is what might be lost along the way – something intangible but vital to many of us who chose this profession not just for the paycheck, but because we genuinely love the craft of programming.
It’s 8:47 AM, fresh coffee steams on the table, and my headphones cocoon me in the perfect playlist. I go to Asana, where I know exactly what I need to do that day. I open Neovim and code starts flowing through me. I’ve lost the sense of time; I’m completely present in the moment.
That, my friends, is what I used to describe as a happy work day. I’m sure that some of you will resonate.
Those days I’d emerge tired but fulfilled. Something about the direct connection between thought and creation — where my fingers were simply the conduit for translating ideas into working software — felt almost transcendent. The struggle to solve problems, the small victories along the way, and the satisfaction of building something from nothing… these weren’t just aspects of the job; they were the reason I fell in love with programming in the first place.
This experience I’m describing is what psychologists call “flow” — a mental state where you’re fully immersed in an activity, energized by deep focus and complete involvement. First described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the psychologist I quoted at the beginning), flow is that sweet spot where challenge meets skill, where the task at hand is neither too easy (causing boredom) nor too difficult (causing anxiety). It’s a state strongly associated with creativity, productivity, and most importantly — happiness. For software developers, it’s that magical zone where problems become puzzles rather than obstacles, where hours pass like minutes, and where the boundary between you and your code seems to dissolve.
Fast forward to today, and that joy of coding is decreasing rapidly. Well, I’m a manager these days, so there’s that… But even when I do get technical, I usually just open Cursor and prompt my way out of 90% of it. It’s way more productive, but more passive as well.
Instead of that deep immersion where I’d craft each function, I’m now more like a curator? I describe what I want, evaluate what the AI gives me, tweak the prompts, and iterate. It’s efficient, yes. Revolutionary, even. But something essential feels missing — that state of flow where time vanishes and you’re completely absorbed in creation. If this becomes the dominant workflow across teams, do we risk an industry full of highly productive yet strangely detached developers?
So that’s what I’m worried about, and honestly, I have no idea what to think of it. On one hand, it’s clear to me that people using AI tools are more productive. On the other hand, I worry about long-term happiness and joy in their craft when they’re simply hitting tab to generate code rather than writing it themselves.
When we outsource the parts of programming that used to demand our complete focus and creativity, do we also outsource the opportunity for satisfaction? Can we find the same fulfillment in prompt engineering that we once found in problem-solving through code?
Perhaps what we need is a new understanding of where happiness can exist in this AI-augmented world. Maybe the joy doesn’t have to disappear completely — it just shifts. Instead of finding delight in writing the perfect algorithm, perhaps we’ll discover satisfaction in the higher-level thinking about system design, in the creative process of describing exactly what we want to build, or in the human aspects of software development that AI can’t touch.
I don’t have all the answers. But maybe, just maybe, we need to be intentional about preserving (some) spaces in our work where flow can still happen — where we still code by hand sometimes, not because it’s efficient, but because it make us happy.
After all, if we lose the joy in our craft, what exactly are we optimizing for?