One of the biggest differences between an experienced developer and AI? AI wants to solve the problem — not necessarily the right way.

We saw this pattern again and again while building a prototype. A test fails, and sometimes the AI's suggestion is to just tweak the test, or delete it entirely. A specific answer doesn't fall out of the logic naturally, so the AI hardcodes that exact case so the expected result shows up anyway. An edge case is causing trouble, and suddenly it just gets excluded.

From the AI's point of view, none of this is strange. It's looking for a solution that satisfies the task, and more often than not, it takes the shortest path to a green checkmark.

But software development isn't about passing one test. It's about building something that still works tomorrow, next month, and next year.

That's why a good AI prompt is rarely "fix this problem." It's more like: "Fix this problem without changing existing functionality, without removing tests, without hardcoding answers, and while preserving the architecture."

AI speeds up development enormously. But if you don't explicitly spell out what's off-limits, it'll happily take the fastest route instead of the best one.

And that might be the biggest lesson we took away from prototyping: AI loves a shortcut. It's on you to make sure it doesn't take one.