I think we’re mixing our metaphors here, what I mean is at the end of the day you write code to get some result you actually care about, or that matters for some material reason. Work is labor at the end of the day. If you don’t care about that outcome or optimizing for it, then you may as well play a video game or code golf or something. What you now want is a hobby.

> If you don’t care about that outcome or optimizing for it,

I do care about the outcome, which is why the thought of using AI to generate it makes me want to gouge my eyes out

In my view using AI means not caring about the outcome because AI produces garbage. In order to be happy with garbage you have to not care