I'm going to properly write up my experiences with LLMs at some point, but some observations so far: 0. It's undeniable that LLMs are both amazing and fun. So

I'm going to properly write up my experiences with LLMs at some point, but some observations so far: 0. It's undeniable that LLMs are both amazing and fun. So is a clown at a children's birthday party, but you wouldn't try to ride the balloon horse, 1. If you are producing code in a language you are not familiar with, you need to be aware of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[0], 2. It excels at language translation. This is what LLMs were originally designed for. So if you can clearly describe an algorithm in English, it will probably be able to translate that to Python, for example. But at that point you have to question why you didn't just write it in Python in the first place, 3. It gamifies things and causes you to work longer and harder. I'm not convinced it's really more efficient, but I am convinced I simply wouldn't have bothered to put in the effort to do certain things before because the perceived effort of writing code from scratch is higher than spinning a roulette wheel that might shit out the answer first time, 4. It stops you thinking for yourself. Ever worked with an incredibly knowledgable colleague who is always eager to help? Or got the feeling you've solved something before so spent time grepping through old codebases and bash history to find what you did last time instead of spending the exact same time doing it again? It's kinda like that except it knows everything and it's always there. I fear that ability will atrophy with extended use, 5. I don't feel like I really own the code it outputs. It feels more like working in a large existing codebase written by a team. When I have to get into things and understand the code it's like I'm reading it for the first time, even though I did check all the diffs etc. It's like having a manic junior run rampant then coming to you when something really needs to be understood. Again, it's the question of is this really saving me any time in the long run? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect