For the past few months I’ve been relying on AI tools to help with my dev workflow. ChatGPT for debugging. GitHub Copilot for boilerplate. Random code-generation bots for documentation. Even UI ideas sometimes. These tools feel like black magic when they work, like suddenly unlocking cheat codes to development. But then out of nowhere they pull a reverse Uno card on you.

Because sometimes… I could’ve just done the damn thing faster myself.

There I am, deep in code. I see a tiny issue like the padding on a button is off. I know exactly where it is, which file, and how to fix it. But instead I open ChatGPT like some dramatic movie scene. I begin typing a 3-line Shakespearean monologue to describe my issue: “Dear AI, change the padding of SubmitButton and may the gods bless your response.” By the time it replies, I’m already sighing, fixing the issue manually, and wondering why I just role-played tech support with a robot.

That right there is what I call The Tacit Efficiency Gap.

What is the Tacit Efficiency Gap?

The Tacit Efficiency Gap is what happens when you already know what to do, but using AI adds more steps than just... doing the thing. It’s not about AI being dumb. It’s about humans being stupidly fast when they're in flow. When the task is simple, familiar, and your brain already has the context loaded like a RAM-hungry tab, AI often lags behind. It’s a moment of friction. A weird little slowdown in an otherwise fast feedback loop caused by prompting, waiting, and verifying AI responses that you didn’t really need in the first place.

Let me illustrate

You’re working on a frontend app. You see that a button looks off. Maybe the text is wrong. Maybe it needs more padding. You know the component. You know the CSS class. Heck, you probably wrote it during a caffeine-fueled night. You could fix it in 10 seconds. But your brain says “Let’s be fancy today.”

You fire up ChatGPT. Type: “Hey, can you update my SubmitButton in React to have 12px vertical padding and change the text to ‘Continue’?” ChatGPT replies. It gives you code that looks 92 percent right. But of course, it used a styling system you don’t use and forgot that your button is actually a custom component with some prop voodoo. Now you have to fix the AI’s fix. You wasted a minute and a half on a 10-second job.

Welcome to the gap.

Why does this gap exist?

Let’s break it down.

1. Your brain is a beast at speed

When you're familiar with a project, your mental map is solid. You know the filenames, component hierarchies, where all the bugs are hiding like gremlins. You don’t need to explain anything to anyone—not even a friendly robot assistant. You just go and fix it, like a caffeine-powered ninja.

2. Prompting is surprisingly heavy

Writing a good prompt takes effort. It’s like sending a carrier pigeon with a letter. It has to be clear, detailed, and painfully obvious. And once it returns, you still have to read it, understand it, and double-check it didn’t hallucinate a new CSS class called fancyGreenButtonThingy.

3. AI doesn’t have full context (unless you spoon-feed it)

Unless you're loading your entire project into a context window the size of Texas, AI doesn't know your setup. It doesn’t know that you abandoned Tailwind last week. It doesn’t know you renamed that component out of spite. You do. So you win.

When is the gap the worst?

You’ll feel the Tacit Efficiency Gap in your bones when you’re doing a small UI tweak, renaming 20 files and know the pattern by heart, adjusting layout spacing and just feel what looks right, doing something where your mouse moves faster than your thoughts, or when AI suggests adding <center> tags (IYKYK). In these moments, AI slows you down—not because it’s dumb—but because it’s just too helpful in the wrong way. Like that one groupmate who offers to make a presentation and ends up using Comic Sans.

When AI still rocks

Now to be clear, this is not me throwing shade at AI. I use AI every day. Sometimes I use it too much, like using a bazooka to open a soda can. AI shines in writing boilerplate you hate doing, helping you navigate weird backend APIs, translating React code to Vue or vice versa, writing test cases when your brain is in vacation mode, doing boring spreadsheet stuff you’d rather not touch, refactoring that one function named doEverything(), and explaining regex like it’s talking to a toddler (me). These are moments where your brain screams “help” and the AI shows up like Batman. This isn’t the gap. This is harmony.

So what’s the point?

The Tacit Efficiency Gap is not a flaw in AI. It’s just a reminder that your brain is really, really fast when it knows what to do. And sometimes, the best tool for the job is you.

If you’re building with AI tools, designing dev workflows, or just vibing with GPT-4 like it’s your pair programmer, remember this: Sometimes it’s faster to just... do the thing.

What we can do about it

Here are some survival tips to dodge the gap:

• Ask: “Do I already know how to fix this?”
• Don’t prompt AI just to feel smart
• Use AI for grunt work, not gut work
• Build better tools that know your context
• Trust your instincts. They’ve been marinated in Stack Overflow and tears for years

If you’ve ever paused and thought “Wait I could’ve fixed this faster myself,” congratulations—you’ve entered the Tacit Efficiency Gap. It’s cozy. There’s coffee. And no prompts required.

PS: I might have discovered this?

I googled around. Scoured Hacker News. Even asked ChatGPT. And surprisingly, no one had a name for this exact thing. So if I’m the first to name it: sweet. If not, at least I gave it a fresh coat of paint.

Either way, now it has a name.

So next time you catch yourself typing a prompt and whisper “this is taking longer than it should,” remember it’s not just you. It’s the gap.

Let me know what you think. Have you felt the Tacit Efficiency Gap in your dev life? Drop a comment, roast me, or tell me your funniest AI fail moment. I’m all ears. And yes—I still use ChatGPT. Just… with a little side-eye.