For about a year I used AI to code like a slot machine. Paste a wall of code. Type "fix it" or "make this better." Pull the lever. Sometimes I won. Usually I got a confident answer that solved the thing I asked about and quietly broke two things I didn't. I assumed the problem was the model. So I switched models. Same slot machine, nicer graphics. The problem wasn't the model. It was that I was giving it almost nothing to work with and expecting it to read my mind. Once I started prompting with