Ask HN: Best practices using AI as an experienced web dev

As an Old, I came up learning the OG web dev languages - HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, etc. As a solo dev, I still largely work with these as natively as possible. But I am not a total dinosaur. I embraced jQuery in the early 2000's, Bootstrap scaffolding, and now often build reactive UI's using Vue 3.

Still, I continue to be picky about the many abstractions-of-abstractions that litter the dev landscape, mostly devised to drive their founders' business models.

AI-driven co-pilots are red hot now, and I want to evaluate their usefulness to my style of dev work. I've begun dabbling with services like Codeium and Claude, particularly within VSCode.

At first these AI tools seem exciting. A whole function conjured out of thin air from a short prompt! But the more I test drive, the more I find that I'm spending my time trying to craft prompts that are accurate enough to generate the code I want. Whereas I could be using that time to just conceive and write the code myself.

If you are not already well-versed in your coding languages, these AI tools must save a ton of time and effort. My question is - what about you devs who are already proficient in your languages of choice? How do you leverage AI co-pilots to maximize their usefulness without just falling into the "distracted by another abstraction" hole?