A degree is passing the test. Not all degree programs get into more advanced topics nor do they necessarily require that someone is able to work through how to solve a problem that they haven't seen before.

A lot of students (and developers out there too) are able to pass follow instructions and pass the test.

A smaller portion of them are able to divide up a task into the "this is what I need to do to accomplish that task".

Even fewer of them are able to work through the process of identifying the cause of a problem they haven't seen before and work through to figure out what the solution for that problem is.

... There are also a lot of people out there that aren't even able to fall into the first group without copying and pasting from another source. I've seen the "stack sort" at work https://xkcd.com/1185/ https://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/ professionally. People copying and pasting from Stack Overflow (back in the day) without understanding what they're writing.

Now, they do it with AI. Take the contents of the Jira description, paste it into some text box, submit the new code as a PR, take the feedback from the PR and paste it back into the box and repeat that a few times. I've seen PRs with "you're absolutely correct, here are the updates you requested" be sent back to me for review again.

This is not a new thing. AI didn't cause it, but AI is exacerbating the issue with professional programming by having the people who are not much more than some meat between one text box and another (yes, I'm being a bit harsh there) and the people who need instructions but don't understand design to be more "productive" while overwhelming the more senior developers.

... And this also becomes a set of permanent training wheels on developers who might be able to learn more if they had to do it. That applies at all levels. One needs to practice without training wheels and learn from mistakes to get better.

AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it