The strain in your brain
摘要
作者以程序员视角反思 AI 时代学习方式的变化：过去阅读复杂文档和源码时会有一种 “脑力紧张感”，这种紧张感标志着真正在学习；而如今阅读 LLM 生成的代码或摘要，内容已被 “预咀嚼”，不再需要费力思考，作者担心这会导致认知能力退化。他提到自己通过手写笔记、手写代码来重新找回那种紧张感，并类比为需要定期去 “大脑健身房”。文章属于个人随笔，没有给出具体方法或数据，但提出了一个关于 AI 使用与深度学习的个人观察。
荐读理由
作者提出AI生成的代码和摘要让学习过程失去深度思考的“紧张感”，并主张手写笔记和手写代码来对抗认知退化，这个反共识观点可能促使你重新审视自己依赖AI工具的学习和工作方式，但全文基于个人经验，缺乏实证数据，只能作为提醒而非行动指南。
原文
29 Jul, 2026
The strain in your brain
Do you feel it?
Do you remember the feeling? You’re reading something: something new and complex. And you’re really trying—pushing through that strain in your brain. Do you feel that anymore?
It’s a strange thing. As a programmer, it was that feeling that signalled to me that I was learning something new. When the strain dissipated, I came out the other side afresh with new knowledge.
Writing code pre-AI gave me that feeling. Reading the docs, or oftentimes the source code of another project led to that tension. Finally figuring out how to wire everything right and make it work was cathartic. It was never really about writing the code anyway—reading and forming that mental model was the hard part.
I recall studying the Double Rachet algorithm because I really wanted to understand the Signal Protocol. I must’ve spent two days on that page. Reading, re-reading. Every time pushing past that strain in the brain, only to be met with it again. I grokked it eventually, and I can still mostly recollect it.
Reading LLM-written code or a summarized document doesn’t feel the same anymore. It’s still reading, but without the strain in the brain. It’s done the churning for me. It’s pre-chewed, I just need to swallow it.
So why do this? Why subject ourselves to cognitive decline? Is it even cognitive decline? Some studies claim so, and some don’t—the jury is still out. Perhaps with every new technological advancement, we must trade a portion of our human ability.
With AI, we trade our (meta)cognition for speed. Doing things the hard way takes time. In this business, time is measured by how fast everyone around you is going. And I think it’s fine—we’re clearly progressing.
Personally, I’ve been slowly bringing that feeling back by taking notes on paper and writing without AI. Writing by hand is good for your brain.1 I’m also going to try writing code by hand for side-projects. I do fear for those who haven’t written code (or prose) by hand before.
This is the new normal; much like how we’ve fenced off time from our weeks to hit the gym, we just have to hit the brain gym every so often.
Perhaps not yet with a fountain pen, but I do miss using one way back in fifth grade!
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