There is value in trying to figure things out on your own, but even then if you can resist the temptation to let the machine think for you, I think AI is still useful for clarifying the problem and working through pros and cons of your ideas to solve it.

I constantly find myself just jumping to AI whenever I have a question. It is actually scaring me how much I just rely on it.

Of course, but there comes a point when doing long division by hand no longer adds to my understanding.