The perception gap
Why it matters If you cannot tell how long things take you, you cannot tell whether a tool is helping. Your feeling of speed is a measurement, and it can be wrong.
In a randomised study, experienced open-source developers worked on real tasks in projects they knew well. Each task was randomly allowed or not allowed AI tools (METR 2025). With AI allowed, tasks took them 19% longer. Before starting, they expected AI to speed them up, and afterwards they still believed it had made them about 20% faster.
The result is about one group, one kind of work and the tools of early 2025, so do not read it as "AI makes everyone slower". Read it as: the developers' own sense of their speed was off by a wide margin, in the direction they hoped for.
Calibration: how close your estimates are to what really happens. Well calibrated means your guesses are off by little, whichever direction.
What this module does
You will write down how long you expect two matched problems to take, one with the tutor allowed and one with it off. Then the course compares your guesses with the times this browser recorded. The numbers stay on your device.
Recap Feeling fast is not the same as being fast. Predict, measure, compare.
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