It's also not whether the code passes tests or not. Sometimes AI does the thing I ask for, and it works, but it's so different from the way I would do it or it's too verbose so I just scrap it and code it by hand.

I mostly use it for boilerplate code nowadays. Anything more complicated and it takes me more effort to review the output than to just code it slowly

Does it seem like it bifurcates based on the person? I've had both experiences myself, sometimes with the same model and within ~days of each other on seemingly similar tasks. It's almost impossible to deny sometimes that actual intelligence is being expressed (and could not be regurgitated intelligence from some random internet page), but then I see firsthand the eye-rolling "intelligence-shaped" output from something else and wonder where I went wrong.

It kinda feels like Michigan J Claude sometimes.