upvote
CI/CD?

My non-techie friends send me screenshots of ChatGPT. I guess that’s a modern micro aggression?

reply
> CI/CD?

That is less useful when the changes are editing the tests but we don't know if a human has validated the assertions.

> My non-techie friends send me screenshots of ChatGPT. I guess that’s a modern micro aggression?

I think the concern I have is explicitly not the sending the chat logs. I think it's this flow:

1. Ask a question

2. Get an answer from a team member.

3. I don't like the answer and instead of discussing I am going to go to Claude and ask the same question.

4. Copy/paste the answer into chat without seeing if it includes novel information.

In one case the engineer was asking which model to select in the agent framework we are using. I gave an answer and provided a list of reasons. They did not like this answer and asked Claude which gave the same answer.

The answer was something inherently obvious and that anyone should be able to derive from first principals.

reply
> That is less useful when the changes are editing the tests but we don't know if a human has validated the assertions.

Yep. I've witnessed this first hand many times. AI-enthusiastic coworker submits a PR. The tests don't pass. "Can you fix the tests? Then I'll review."

Next commit has `assert status == 200` changed to `assert status == 500` all over the place, among other things. Yes, technically, the tests now pass, but...

Last summer, this went on with one guy for weeks. Thousands and thousands of lines of slop. Eventually he was moved off the project and we threw away all his changes.

reply
I fear what's going to happen with less tech literate managers who don't understand these cases.
reply
Yep. It's bad enough as it is! I've had several tech illiterate managers that could not review a PR to save their life. They have zero understanding of the work product. Manager first, engineering second.
reply
What's funny about this is that it sounds like your coworker reviews his LLM output roughly as well as you read the other replies before assuming that this was an anti-LLM pile-on thread.
reply
I did read the other replies. I don't think my comment is that LLMs are bad. I use LLMs and agents for work. I think my "oh shit" moment is the dynamic that giving someone LLMs amplifies their impact (positive or negative).

For example, some people give kids tiny go karts and that's acceptable because the damage they can do with a very tiny battery powered 4 wheeler is minimal. We now live in a world where everyone has access to a tank and can plow over everything.

I think LLMs will increase anti-social behavior.

reply
Ahh, gotcha.

Personally, I worry far more about guns in this regard, but I feel you.

reply
Owning and using guns doesn't cause cognitive decline in the same way I've observed steep cognitive changes in people I know who are taken in by LLMs.

I recently had a friend ask an LLM what fun things there are to do in a town we were visiting. It gave the most generic answer like "try local restaurants" and "there are bars" and stuff. There's not a lot of tourist information for this area so it was nonspecific.

This is someone with an advanced degree in a medical field and she thought this was amazing insight. I asked, how is this different from what you already knew and she stood there thinking for a bit and you could tell there was a cognitive dissonance uncovered. She was very concerned when thinking it over and realizing it wasn't something she was able to intuit.

A relative of mine a long time ago had a stroke and recovered. I hadn't seen that facial expression since trying to help my relative figure out how to sit in a chair again.

Basic cognitive functions lost easily, difficult to rebuild.

reply