> One of the strangest things about AI to me is that everyone seems to have a radically different experience.

Because it is that uneven. Some problems it nails at first go or with very little cosmetic changes.

In others it decides on solution, hallucinates parts that do not exist like adding API calls or config options that do not exists and gets the basics wrong.

Similarly you do something that's somewhat common pattern, it usually nails it. If you do something that subtly differs in certain way from a common pattern, it will just do the common pattern and you get something wrong.