Friction is the mechanism by which mammalian brains acquire skills. This is as close to proven as we get in cognitive neuroscience; without a struggle, we literally don't learn. This is not a controversial statement. The only way to improve our cognitive skills is to intentionally add friction - aka practice. Use it or lose it.

This isn't necessarily anti-AI. Imagine a tool that could quiz you, provide context for decisions, and make sure you're up to date on your knowledge of the codebase - instead of just writing code for you. IOW an AI-based system could intentionally add the right kind of friction to improve understanding.