“You’ve hit your ChatGPT usage limit.” I didn’t expect that message to mean anything beyond mild inconvenience. But it ended up revealing something much deeper about how I was using AI, and how most of us probably are. Background I’ve been working on building an autonomous snow-clearing robot since 2023. It’s one of those projects where everything sounds straightforward until you actually try to make it work: motor control traction turning dynamics real-world constraints Things got a lot more interesting once AI tools became part of my workflow. Suddenly: debugging got faster ideas came quicker I could iterate without getting stuck for hours It genuinely felt like I was getting closer to something I had been chasing for a while. The turning point Then I made what felt like a small decision at the time: I bought a set of cheap motors from a manufacturer. Bad idea. The software was glitchy. The behavior was inconsistent. And my rover couldn’t perform a proper zero-radius turn.…