u/Zealousideal-Win7772

A year ago people were losing their mind saying AI is going to replace every job in two years. Now half the comments online are calling it overhyped garbage that can't even get basic facts right.

The narrative changed so fast. One month it's "AGI is coming next year" and the next month it's "LLMs hit a wall and can't reason for shit."

For people actually using this stuff daily for coding, art, roleplay, or writing... are you seeing real progress or does it feel like we just hit a plateau?

This may seem like a silly question for this subreddit, but hear me out.

I'm an english and history student, and an artist. I'm VERY against the way that the large majority of people use generative ai to offload their schoolwork and creativity. I avoid using ai whenever I can because of that moral standpoint and due to the environmental damage it causes.

However, I am aware that ai is and is going to continue to be integrated as a tool in professional fields, and I should at least have some knowledge of how it works and how to utilize it efficiently. I don't really want to go messing around with it, however, as that seems wasteful -- I don't want to use it "just to practice". Are there reports/publications/guides that I could read, or places that stay updated with ai news/innovations? That way, I can learn about what is being developed and have an understanding without just aimlessly trying shit out.

It feels like coding has shifted from writing syntax to just acting as an architect and approver. For smaller .NET/Blazor projects, letting Cursor handle the full context and just applying changes makes the process way faster.

Copilot feels outdated after this, though I still use web-based ChatGPT to brainstorm initial concepts before bringing them into the editor.

For those using AI-first editors daily, is anything currently outperforming Cursor on full-codebase context, or is it still in a tier of its own?