Why do articles like this always say things like "I've used LLMs to get some stuff done faster" and then go on to describe how LLMs get them to spend more time and money to do a worse job? You don't need LLMs to frustrate you into lowering your standards, the power to do that was within you all along.

Really enjoyed this post.

> Putting aside existential risks, I don't see a future where a lot of jobs don't cease to exist.

I'm personally betting on the plateau effect with LLMs. There are two plateaus I see coming that will require humans to fix no matter what we do:

1. The LLMs themselves plateau. We're already seeing new models get worse, not better at writing code (e.g., Sonnet 3.5 seems to be better than 3.7 at coding). This could be a temporary fluke, or, an inherent reality of how LLMs work (where I tend to land).

2. Humans will plateau. First, humans themselves will see their skills atrophy as they defer more and more to AI than struggling to solve problems (and by extension, learn new things). Second, humans will be disincentivized to create new forms of programming and write about them, so eventually the inputs to the LLM become stale.

Short-term, this won't appear to be true, but long-term (on the author's 10+ year scale), it will be frightening. Doubly so when systems that were primarily or entirely "vibe coded" start to break in ways that the few remaining humans responsible for maintaining them don't understand (and can't prompt their way out of).

And that's where I think the future work will be: in fixing or replacing systems unintentionally being broken by the use of AI. So, you'll either be an "AI mess fixer" or more entrepreneurial doing "artisan, hand-crafted software."

Either of those I expect to be fairly lucrative.

I’ve been having a different experience. Asking Claude to fix the bug again and again is annoying, so I’m still working on “pull pieces at a time, understanding each” so I do fix the bug myself when it’s faster to do so. In fact, the majority of times I’ve been using the LLM to build tiny libraries for me to avoid the need for the LLM in the running app. Kind of like StackOverflow on steroids. I don’t feel as the glue, but only having a superior tooling to get info I need fast.

AI is unlikely to take away jobs from software engineers. There’s no natural upper bound on the amount of software people can consume - unlike cars, food or houses.

Software engineers ultimately are people with “will to build”. Just as hedge fund people have a “will to trade”. The code or tooling is just a means to an end.

Huh, I have the opposite feeling- that people already have most of the software they want a this point.

On the plus side, at least when I'm old and not so mentally sharp, my personal AI can tell me when I'm being scammed or why the wifi isn't working.

"I like fixing thorny bugs". Not me. Any tool that can get me to the solution faster is always welcome. IME, AI does well handling the boring parts.

these well articulated articles will soon turn into pure despair. Happened to me.

Very well-articulated article on a shared feeling!

Well written, I agree with the basic premise of the idea, I just think the changes will be even more dramatic.

A lot of us are stationary, thinking stuff and other people around us will be automated, but not us, “I am special”, well I fear a lot of people will find out just how much special they unfortunately are (not).

I would highly caution against recommending DMT to random strangers. It is not for the faint of heart and it is also nowhere near a magic fix-all. Also, its routes of administration mostly suck (smoking/vaping or MAOIs).