I Created My First AI-assisted Pull Request and I Feel Like a Fraud

I used AI to contribute to an open source project. The code was merged. I didn’t learn anything and I felt bad as an engineer.

This is the wrong way to think about tool use.

You wanted this feature for years. You understood the problem, but the amount of time that it would have taken to properly implement and test it held you back from doing it. Obviously, anyone else who wanted this feature came to the same conclusion.

This new tool reduced the amount of time that it would take. So you used the tool. You used the tool to bring the feature into existence, checked the tests, and took enough time to ensure that it was good. You didn't lie about your contribution in the PR, and the maintainer deemed it acceptable. And now everyone has this feature!

When you eat a strawberry do you feel like an impostor for not growing it yourself?

> When you eat a strawberry do you feel like an impostor for not growing it yourself?

I don’t think this is the right question. What you posit is a consumption dilemma. It’s a valid question, but it focuses on what values we might arbitrarily ascribe to how we source what we consume.

The OPs dilemma is more akin to giving a cutting board for Christmas that you bought vs handmade. Or some other. I think these cases of how we present what it appears we created is the dilemma OP is facing.