I think that spending a lot of time typing is likely an architectural problem. But I do see how AI tools can be used for "oneshot" code where pondering maintainability and structure is wasted time.

For me, getting what's in my head out onto the screen as fast as possible increases my productivity immensely.

Maybe it's because I'm used to working with constant interruptions, but until what I want is on the screen, I can't start thinking about the next thing. E.g. if I'm making a new class, I'm not thinking about the implementation of the inner functions until I've got the skeleton of the class in place. The faster I get each stage done, the faster I work.

It's why I devoted a lot of time getting efficient at vim, setting up snippets for my languages, etc. AI is the next stage of that in my mind.

Maybe you can keep thinking about next steps while stuff is "solved" in your head but not on the screen. It also depends on the type of work you're doing. I've spent many hours to delete a few lines and change one, obviously AI doesn't help there.

It's the same for me if I'm working on something unique or interesting, or a new technology.

Some kinds of coding require very little thinking, though. Converting a design to frontend interface or implementing a CRUD backend are mostly typing.

That's certainly the case for myself, too, though I've got roughly two fewer decades in this than yourself!

But typing throughput has never been my major bottleneck. Refactoring is basically never just straight code transforms, and most of my time is spent thinking, exploring or teaching these days