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Them using excavator and trucks etc to move dirt. Is the same as us using a compiler to compile code into an executable.

LLM would be if the digging and hauling of the dirt happened without any people involved except the planning of logistics.

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> LLM would be if

you'd sometimes discover a city communication line destroyed in the process; or the dirt hauled on top of a hospitals, killing hundreds of orphaned kids with cancer; or kittens mixed into concrete instead of cement.

And since you clicked "agree" on that Anthropic EULA, you can't sue then for it, so you now hire 5 construction workers to constantly overlook the work.

It's still net positive... for now at least... But far from being "without any people". And it'll likely remain this way for a long time.

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This is the right take IMO, so thanks for a balanced comment.

I would add a nuance from OPs perspective sorta: a close friend of mine works in construction, and often comments on how projects can be different. On some, everyone in the entire building supply chain can be really inspired to work on a really interesting project because of either its usefulness or its craftsmanship (the 2 of which are related), and on some, everyone’s, just trying to finish the project is cheaply quickly as possible.

It’s not that the latter hasn’t existed in tech, but it does appear that there is a way to use LLMs to do more of the latter. It’s not “the end of a craft”, but without a breakthrough (and something to check the profit incentive) it’s also not a path to utopia (like other comments seem to be implying)

Craftsmanship doesn’t die, it evolves, but the space in between can be a bit exhausting as markets fail to understand the difference at first.

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I think OP is coming at this more from an artisan angle. Perhaps there were shoveler artisans who took pride in the angle of their dirt-shoveling. Those people perhaps do lament the advent of excavators. But presumably the population who find code beautiful vs the art of shoveling are of different sizes
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