> Approaching it from first principles means starting with what we’re trying to do and asking how AI could help

I’m not sure why would you want to think about how an AI would help. If you understand what you need to do and you understand the capabilities of the tools available you run the coding / learning loop. If you think you should use AI then you are solving the how to use AI problem, which just adds to the complexity. Orthogonal to first principle thinking, just a workflow issue.