No AI Fridays

Why?

Study after study shows that using LLMs can cause you to accumulate cognitive debt, make you less engaged with your work, negatively impact your critical thinking abilities, and hamper your skill formation.

Constant use of AI creates blind spots. When we offload decision-making, we become unaware of the trade-offs. You can use No AI Fridays to assess what's actually happening and retrospect on the choices the AI made for you. Make sure the direction it's steering you towards is still aligned with your personal preferences and style.

If the productivity gains from AI are so big, spending one day a week to minimize its downsides shouldn't be a difficult trade-off.

By defaulting to AI we miss opportunities for good old automation. One day a week without tokens can lead to significant token usage reduction over the long term.

If that's still not enough for you, try to remember when coding was fun—how it felt to enter a flow state and deliver cool stuff you were genuinely connected to and proud of.

How?

Just send this link to whoever is the boss at your shop and ask them if you can do it. The basic setup is simple: turn off your AI assistants for the day, write code with your own hands, read the documentation, and think things through yourself.

Who?

For now, as the CEO of HTMX, I've mandated No AI Fridays.

htm

x

If you want your company to be added to the list, just ping me at @lazilyevaluated and I will add you.

---

FAQ

How do I convince my boss to do No AI Fridays at my shop?

Just send them a link to this website.

Can I still use greptile, prelint, etc.?

These are actually awesome when used with handcrafted code—they give you feedback that you can learn from. Your LLM is not learning shit from their feedback, but you can.

Can I do more than one day per week?

Sure, depending on how and what you do, you may find your balance with up to 7 days without AI.

Can I do less than one day per week?

You are pushing it, mate.

Can I just take a peek or two?

A couple of shots of Claude or a pint of Codex is always best when you try to quit, right?

Can I quit after a couple of weeks?

If quitting is what you like.

I have a question

Just send it to @lazilyevaluated.