people who were a really good programmers before will probably use it responsibly for a while, until their skills inevitably erode
Damn, dude, I had mad 6502 assembly skillz in 1985, I could even write it out by hand - pencil on paper, and those slowly eroded through use of compilers for higher level languages until my last assembly experience in 1996, today… I’d be learning everyhing specific to assembly code from scratch. I guess I’m just useless now.
the people I respect and call intelligent are not the ones that shy away from using new and interesting tools.
Gotta agree there. We had two clear camps of programmers before LLM agents came along, and the camp I least enjoyed reviewing the code of before (and now) of is the camp that resisted adoption of new interesting tools the most loudly.
I think there is no equivalency between compilers and other tools, and LLMs. As the comment states, they are just the statistical prediction of what would come next. Compilers may sometimes give unexpected outcomes, but they are working to a defined set of rules and there is potential to see how they actually came to that outcome and address it.
Added to this is the prevalence of people thinking that LLMs can allow them to do anything, whether or not they understand it, it’s even sold like that. In my own organisation I have an operations manager thinking he can make pages for our Intranet - where does it store the data? How is access controlled? So many basic questions that an actual programmer would know to think of. Sure you can just keep asking people if they can fly a plane and maybe one will do well enough that they get you all the way there, till it comes to landing and it’s too late - maybe better to just ask a pilot to do it.
Our software engineers use it really well, they can read what it’s outputting to understand if it’s wrong, they know how to prompt it to avoid issues, they use it for snippets and fixes and that it won’t just write a whole program. However, it’s benefit to us (and the world) is nowhere near worth the monetary and environmental cost. The investors pouring in money are hoping they can be the company that people become reliant on, so they can survive the bubble and their ultimate goal of replacing real people.
Added to this is the prevalence of people thinking that LLMs can allow them to do anything, whether or not they understand it
1971, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory depicted a computer which could (but was refusing to for comedic effect) predict the location of the remaining golden tickets. There were, and probably still are, a shocking number of people who believe that was a realistic scene.
I have an operations manager thinking he can make pages for our Intranet - where does it store the data? How is access controlled? So many basic questions that an actual programmer would know to think of.
Option 1: hold his hand and educate him on what he lacks
Option 2: let him flounder and make fun of his mistakes (the making fun part should be done anonymously if you value your job)
Option 3: he’s bright enough to ask the important questions to you or the LLM and get reasonable answers
Option 3 has a very realistic chance of working, if 1) you have documentation for how you do these things today - even informal documentation, anything the LLM can read and extract the relevant patterns from, 2) the LLM must have access to that documentation, and 3) your manager needs the patience and perseverence to work the discovery process until it’s viable and sustainable.
Odds are, your operations manager is going to fall short on the patience and perseverence dimensions and offload the boring parts to you, after all why did he become a manager in the first place?
maybe better to just ask a pilot to do it.
Yeah, except you can’t make nightly backups of the plane’s passenger manifest. If you’re not making nightly backups, you’re already in catchup territory LLM or no.
it’s benefit to us (and the world) is nowhere near worth the monetary and environmental cost.
I suggest doing a little research into what exactly the monetary and environmental cost of YOUR usage is. People engaged in low-value usages (too many to even begin to imagine, Rule 34 needs expansion to start to cover them) are burning a lot of un-necessary tokens.
What I have read, consistently from various sources, is that my $20/month Claude code subscription burns $11 to 12 in electricity to serve my responses. My house burns over $13 in electricity per day in the summer, mostly for the air conditioning.
Damn, dude, I had mad 6502 assembly skillz in 1985, I could even write it out by hand - pencil on paper, and those slowly eroded through use of compilers for higher level languages until my last assembly experience in 1996, today… I’d be learning everyhing specific to assembly code from scratch. I guess I’m just useless now.
Gotta agree there. We had two clear camps of programmers before LLM agents came along, and the camp I least enjoyed reviewing the code of before (and now) of is the camp that resisted adoption of new interesting tools the most loudly.
I think there is no equivalency between compilers and other tools, and LLMs. As the comment states, they are just the statistical prediction of what would come next. Compilers may sometimes give unexpected outcomes, but they are working to a defined set of rules and there is potential to see how they actually came to that outcome and address it.
Added to this is the prevalence of people thinking that LLMs can allow them to do anything, whether or not they understand it, it’s even sold like that. In my own organisation I have an operations manager thinking he can make pages for our Intranet - where does it store the data? How is access controlled? So many basic questions that an actual programmer would know to think of. Sure you can just keep asking people if they can fly a plane and maybe one will do well enough that they get you all the way there, till it comes to landing and it’s too late - maybe better to just ask a pilot to do it.
Our software engineers use it really well, they can read what it’s outputting to understand if it’s wrong, they know how to prompt it to avoid issues, they use it for snippets and fixes and that it won’t just write a whole program. However, it’s benefit to us (and the world) is nowhere near worth the monetary and environmental cost. The investors pouring in money are hoping they can be the company that people become reliant on, so they can survive the bubble and their ultimate goal of replacing real people.
1971, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory depicted a computer which could (but was refusing to for comedic effect) predict the location of the remaining golden tickets. There were, and probably still are, a shocking number of people who believe that was a realistic scene.
Option 1: hold his hand and educate him on what he lacks
Option 2: let him flounder and make fun of his mistakes (the making fun part should be done anonymously if you value your job)
Option 3: he’s bright enough to ask the important questions to you or the LLM and get reasonable answers
Option 3 has a very realistic chance of working, if 1) you have documentation for how you do these things today - even informal documentation, anything the LLM can read and extract the relevant patterns from, 2) the LLM must have access to that documentation, and 3) your manager needs the patience and perseverence to work the discovery process until it’s viable and sustainable.
Odds are, your operations manager is going to fall short on the patience and perseverence dimensions and offload the boring parts to you, after all why did he become a manager in the first place?
Yeah, except you can’t make nightly backups of the plane’s passenger manifest. If you’re not making nightly backups, you’re already in catchup territory LLM or no.
I suggest doing a little research into what exactly the monetary and environmental cost of YOUR usage is. People engaged in low-value usages (too many to even begin to imagine, Rule 34 needs expansion to start to cover them) are burning a lot of un-necessary tokens.
What I have read, consistently from various sources, is that my $20/month Claude code subscription burns $11 to 12 in electricity to serve my responses. My house burns over $13 in electricity per day in the summer, mostly for the air conditioning.