{
  "id": 7332770,
  "title": "AI Made Hackathons Easier to Finish. That's the Problem.",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/14/ai-made-hackathons-easier-to-finish-thats-the-problem",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-14T14:07:49.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/dannwaneri/ai-made-hackathons-easier-to-finish-thats-the-problem-32ck"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Completing a hackathon project used to carry significance. Nowadays, it merely indicates you had a good prompt. A remark on an online platform suggested the golden era of hackathons ended. The period from 2021 to 2023 was touted as the most effortless method to build connections, acquire knowledge swiftly, and secure a job without delving into Leetcode. However, AI ended that. Developing became so streamlined that the idea cultivators took charge, and the whereabouts of what could replace hackathons for newcomers today remain unclear. While I may not fully concur, I understand the sentiment they express. Prior to AI tools becoming part of my routine, I participated in several hackathons, including Google ones, but I remember my experiences as hazy. What I vividly recall is not completing them. Not because the concept was flawed. I was trapped in tutorial hell, wrestling with self-doubt alongside it. I still consider those hackathons fulfilling. Not due to completion, as most times, I couldn't, but because they demonstrated what was truly achievable in this sector. Real operational software, created by peers my age, resolving genuine issues in a weekend. Before this exposure, \"good\" was an abstraction. Post this, \"good\" had a definition. Right now, I am simultaneously managing multiple hackathons: Agents for Humans, AI Builders, the Niger Delta VES fleet build, and a few others. The most significant contrast from those initial days is not the technology. It's that I now finish them. I find building unendingly rewarding. It's gratifying to see something when it's completed. People often overlook that building is the soothing aspect, not the chore. This is precisely why finishing matters more now, not less. If development is the game, incomplete hackathons are merely levels untouched. At this juncture, someone ought to shock me if I even look at a new project until these are concluded. AI didn't eradicate tutorial hell. Instead, it made it optional. The hurdle is no longer syntax or enduring four hours debugging an import error at 2am. That friction is largely absent. Yet, AI augments more than velocity. It amplifies your capacity to construct the wrong thing, with confidence, on time, with a functional demonstration. This is the crux of the \"idea guys taking over\" concern. Completion once signified proof you comprehended your creation because completion was arduous. Nowadays, completion is attainable to anyone with a good prompt and no genuine appraisal of whether the thing being built is worthy. Tutorial hell was arduous. I'm not nostalgic for it. However, troubleshooting your own malfunctioning import statement at 2am educated you what actually breaks and why. A working AI-generated demo doesn't. I don't believe the solution is deliberately reintroducing that friction. I don't believe the industry has yet identified what could replace it either. AI eliminated the element that once compelled individuals to learn gradually. Nobody has constructed the tool that enables rapid learning without bypassing the crucial part of genuinely understanding what you shipped. Hackathons still embody the most crucial aspect for me. They illustrate what is feasible, who is involved, and what the benchmark truly looks like up close. That aspect isn't extinct. I'm experiencing it now, across each of the projects I'm juggling. What's vanished is the notion that completion verifies anything. Completion used to signify something. Now it simply means you had a good prompt.",
  "summary": "Finishing a hackathon project used to mean something. Now it just means you had a good prompt. Someone on my timeline said the golden age of hackathons is dead. 2021 to 2023, they said, was the easiest way to build a network, learn fast, and land a job without touching Leetcode. Then AI nuked it. Building got so easy that the \"idea guys\" took over, and nobody's sure what replaces hackathons for…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}