Stage 1: AI Curious

You've heard the buzz. Maybe you've tried GitHub Copilot or asked ChatGPT to write a function. You know AI coding tools exist, but you're not sure if they're a genuine shift or just fancy autocomplete. You're curious — and that curiosity is the first step.

At this stage, most developers treat AI like a search engine with better formatting. They paste in a question, get an answer, and copy it into their editor. Some days it helps. Some days it hallucinates an API that doesn't exist. The experience feels inconsistent.

The shift happens when you stop asking AI to write code for you and start asking it to write code with you. That's the difference between autocomplete and collaboration. It's a mindset change, not a tool change.

Your goals at this stage: pick one tool and commit to it for two weeks. Learn what it's good at and where it fails. Start noticing when your instructions are clear vs. vague — that awareness alone will make you better.