6 ms·

For all the folks on the "reduce mental burden", "reduce cognitive load" train, are you all aware that this basically means you are exercising less your brain d

For all the folks on the "reduce mental burden", "reduce cognitive load" train, are you all aware that this basically means you are exercising less your brain day in and day out, and in the end you will forget how to do things? You will learn how to guide an AI agent, but until the day an AI agent is perfect (and we don't know if we will ever see that day), you are just losing inch by inch your ability to actually understand what the agent is writing and what is going on. I'm pretty radical on this topic but for me cognitive load is good, you are making your neurons work and keep synapses in place where they matter (at least for your job). I totally accept writing down doc or howto to make doing some action in future easier and reduce that cognitive load, but using AI agent IMO is like going to bike in the mountain with an electrical bike. Yes, you keep seeing the wonderful vistas but you are not really training your legs.

theshrike79 1y ago
This, to me, feels like you're complaining to the 45 year old builder that they should be using a hammer instead of a nail gun. I know how to nail a nail, I've nailed so many nails that I can't remember them all. My job is to build a house efficiently, not nail nails. Anything that can make me more efficient at it is a net positive. Now I've saved 2 hours in the framing process by using a nail gun, I have 2 extra hours to do things that need my experience. Maybe spot the contractor using a nail plate in the wrong way or help the apprentice on their hammering technique.
- ApeWithCompiler 1y ago
  I'd like to counter argue we need to shift the notion of efficiency. While the nailgun is more efficient than the hammer, both need to be operated by a real human. Including all limitations of physical and mental health. While we can improve the efficiency of the tools we should consider not to burn out humans to match the goal.
- darkwater 1y ago
  IMO it's different. That's why I brought the e-bike similitude: climbing even mild mountains or hills with your own legs will actually make your legs, heart and lungs stronger in the process. So you get both the wonderful views (building the house or delivering the software) but also you get improved health (keeping your mind trained on both high level thinking and low level implementation vs high level only). We might say that using a hammer constantly will develop more your muscles, but in carpentry there are still plenty of manual work that will develop your muscles anyway. (and we still don't have bricks laying machines)
  - closewith 1y ago
    > So you get both the wonderful views (building the house or delivering the software) but also you get improved health (keeping your mind trained on both high level thinking and low level implementation vs high level only). The vast majority of developers aren't summitting beautiful mountains of code, but are instead are sifting through endless corporate slop. > We might say that using a hammer constantly will develop more your muscles, but in carpentry there are still plenty of manual work that will develop your muscles anyway. The trades destroy human bodies over time and lead to awful health outcomes. Most developers will and should take any opportunity to reduce cognitive load, and will instead spend their limited cognitive abilities on things that matter: family, sport, art, literature, civics. Very few developers are vocational. If that is you and your job is your identity, then that's good for you. But don't fall into the trap of thinking that's a normal or desirable situation for others.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      > The vast majority of developers aren't summitting beautiful mountains I'm not sure you're approaching this metaphor the right away. The point is that coding manually is great cognitive exercise which keeps the mind sharp for doing the beautiful stuff. > The trades destroy human bodies over time and leads to awful health outcomes. Again, you're maybe being too literal and missing the point. No one is destroying their minds by coding. Exercise is good.
      - johnisgood 1y ago
        I am using LLMs, too, and I do not consider myself thinking less. I still have to be part of the whole process, incl. architectural process among other things that require my knowledge and my thinking.
        AlecSchueler 1y ago
        I use them too and actually agree with you that the cognitive load is somewhat comparable. I was only pointing out what seemed like an abuse of the metaphor.
- quickthrowman 1y ago
  The builder still needs to study the plans and build a mental model of what they’re building. A nailgun isn’t automated in the way an LLM is, maybe if it moved itself around and fired nails where it thought they should go based on things it had seen in the past it would be a better comparison.
watwut 1y ago
> are you all aware that this basically means you are exercising less your brain day in and day out, and in the end you will forget how to do things? IDE did the same thing and we found other ways to exercise our brains. This one is really something unreasonable to worry about.
jvanderbot 1y ago
My current pattern is to manually craft during the first half of the day when I enjoy that, and during the second half when I'd be normally burnt on hard thought and not quite up for another coffee, pomodoro, theanine deep dive, I can start tackling tests, exploratory data analysis, or small bugs, and these tasks are 50% or more LLM. So yeah, 30%-50% seems right, but it's not like I lost any part of my job that I love.
- darkwater 1y ago
  That's a good approach, I like it and probably adopt it as well. I'm not dogmatically against LLMs, I just need we should think about possible consequences, and not thinking about them like a holy grail of everything.
danielvaughn 1y ago
It completely depends on how you use AI. If you turn off your brain entirely and just coast as much as possible, then yeah your comment would apply. But I think of work as essentially two things - creative activity and toil. I simply use AI for toil, and let my brain focus on creativity and problem solving. Writing my 100,000th for loop is not going to preserve my brain.
- cpursley 1y ago
  This is why I recommend the functional programming map pattern ;)
ynx 1y ago
On the contrary, I am a lot more willing to think through the contours of the problems I need to solve because I haven't drained my mental energy writing five repetitive - but slightly different - log lines and tweaking the wording slightly to be correct. I'm training smarter, and exercising better, instead of wasting all the workout/training time on warmups, as it were.
rr808 1y ago
You're right, but usually at the end of the day I'm completely mentally exhausted and dont want to talk to anyone. Its something I've realized is a big problem in my life. I'm actively trying to reduce mental load to leave stuff for other hobbies and social activities.
fragmede 1y ago
Do you sit there multiplying two digit numbers in your head for fun, for the practice, to keep operating at peek mental capacity on weekends? In the name of operating at peek mental capacity, that seems like the most logical thing to do. Just wake up at 6 am Saturday morning and start multiplying numbers on your head. If you don't wanna use AI, that's entirely up to you, but "you're gonna forget how to program if you use AI and then whatever are you going to do if the AI is down" reeks of motivated reasoning.
wiz21c 1y ago
you are obviously not past 50 years old. At that age, eventhough I "train" (as you imply it) a lot (I code about 50 hours a week, 40 at work, the rest for my own projects; not of them easy, my job is writing numerical code for simulation and my pet project is writinga very accurate emulator (which implies physics modelling, tons of research, etc)). I can definitely feel I'm not as productive as before (before I could sustain 60 hours a week) eventhough I do feel I'm using my brain to the maximum... So yeah, past a certain age, you'll be happy to reduce your mental load. No question about it. And I feel quite relieved when Claud writes this classic algorith I have understood long ago and don't want to re-activate in my brain. And I feel quite disappointed when Claude misses the point and I have to code review it...
ehnto 1y ago
I have been coding and athletic training for about as long as eachother, your anecdote works. However just like in physical training, you should really spare your energy for stuff that you enjoy and actually progresses you. By using LLMs to do some of the stuff I have long gotten over, I have a bit more mental energy to tackle new problems I wouldn't have previously. As well LLMs just aren't actually that competent yet, so it's not like devs are completely hands off. Since I barely do boilerplate as I work across legacy projects, there's no way Claude Code today is writing half my code.

theshrike79 1y ago

This, to me, feels like you're complaining to the 45 year old builder that they should be using a hammer instead of a nail gun. I know how to nail a nail, I've nailed so many nails that I can't remember them all. My job is to build a house efficiently, not nail nails. Anything that can make me more efficient at it is a net positive. Now I've saved 2 hours in the framing process by using a nail gun, I have 2 extra hours to do things that need my experience. Maybe spot the contractor using a nail plate in the wrong way or help the apprentice on their hammering technique.

ApeWithCompiler 1y ago
I'd like to counter argue we need to shift the notion of efficiency. While the nailgun is more efficient than the hammer, both need to be operated by a real human. Including all limitations of physical and mental health. While we can improve the efficiency of the tools we should consider not to burn out humans to match the goal.
darkwater 1y ago
IMO it's different. That's why I brought the e-bike similitude: climbing even mild mountains or hills with your own legs will actually make your legs, heart and lungs stronger in the process. So you get both the wonderful views (building the house or delivering the software) but also you get improved health (keeping your mind trained on both high level thinking and low level implementation vs high level only). We might say that using a hammer constantly will develop more your muscles, but in carpentry there are still plenty of manual work that will develop your muscles anyway. (and we still don't have bricks laying machines)
- closewith 1y ago
  > So you get both the wonderful views (building the house or delivering the software) but also you get improved health (keeping your mind trained on both high level thinking and low level implementation vs high level only). The vast majority of developers aren't summitting beautiful mountains of code, but are instead are sifting through endless corporate slop. > We might say that using a hammer constantly will develop more your muscles, but in carpentry there are still plenty of manual work that will develop your muscles anyway. The trades destroy human bodies over time and lead to awful health outcomes. Most developers will and should take any opportunity to reduce cognitive load, and will instead spend their limited cognitive abilities on things that matter: family, sport, art, literature, civics. Very few developers are vocational. If that is you and your job is your identity, then that's good for you. But don't fall into the trap of thinking that's a normal or desirable situation for others.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    > The vast majority of developers aren't summitting beautiful mountains I'm not sure you're approaching this metaphor the right away. The point is that coding manually is great cognitive exercise which keeps the mind sharp for doing the beautiful stuff. > The trades destroy human bodies over time and leads to awful health outcomes. Again, you're maybe being too literal and missing the point. No one is destroying their minds by coding. Exercise is good.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      I am using LLMs, too, and I do not consider myself thinking less. I still have to be part of the whole process, incl. architectural process among other things that require my knowledge and my thinking.
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        I use them too and actually agree with you that the cognitive load is somewhat comparable. I was only pointing out what seemed like an abuse of the metaphor.
quickthrowman 1y ago
The builder still needs to study the plans and build a mental model of what they’re building. A nailgun isn’t automated in the way an LLM is, maybe if it moved itself around and fired nails where it thought they should go based on things it had seen in the past it would be a better comparison.

watwut 1y ago

> are you all aware that this basically means you are exercising less your brain day in and day out, and in the end you will forget how to do things? IDE did the same thing and we found other ways to exercise our brains. This one is really something unreasonable to worry about.

jvanderbot 1y ago

My current pattern is to manually craft during the first half of the day when I enjoy that, and during the second half when I'd be normally burnt on hard thought and not quite up for another coffee, pomodoro, theanine deep dive, I can start tackling tests, exploratory data analysis, or small bugs, and these tasks are 50% or more LLM. So yeah, 30%-50% seems right, but it's not like I lost any part of my job that I love.

darkwater 1y ago
That's a good approach, I like it and probably adopt it as well. I'm not dogmatically against LLMs, I just need we should think about possible consequences, and not thinking about them like a holy grail of everything.

danielvaughn 1y ago

It completely depends on how you use AI. If you turn off your brain entirely and just coast as much as possible, then yeah your comment would apply. But I think of work as essentially two things - creative activity and toil. I simply use AI for toil, and let my brain focus on creativity and problem solving. Writing my 100,000th for loop is not going to preserve my brain.

cpursley 1y ago
This is why I recommend the functional programming map pattern ;)

ynx 1y ago

On the contrary, I am a lot more willing to think through the contours of the problems I need to solve because I haven't drained my mental energy writing five repetitive - but slightly different - log lines and tweaking the wording slightly to be correct. I'm training smarter, and exercising better, instead of wasting all the workout/training time on warmups, as it were.

rr808 1y ago

You're right, but usually at the end of the day I'm completely mentally exhausted and dont want to talk to anyone. Its something I've realized is a big problem in my life. I'm actively trying to reduce mental load to leave stuff for other hobbies and social activities.

fragmede 1y ago

Do you sit there multiplying two digit numbers in your head for fun, for the practice, to keep operating at peek mental capacity on weekends? In the name of operating at peek mental capacity, that seems like the most logical thing to do. Just wake up at 6 am Saturday morning and start multiplying numbers on your head. If you don't wanna use AI, that's entirely up to you, but "you're gonna forget how to program if you use AI and then whatever are you going to do if the AI is down" reeks of motivated reasoning.

wiz21c 1y ago

you are obviously not past 50 years old. At that age, eventhough I "train" (as you imply it) a lot (I code about 50 hours a week, 40 at work, the rest for my own projects; not of them easy, my job is writing numerical code for simulation and my pet project is writinga very accurate emulator (which implies physics modelling, tons of research, etc)). I can definitely feel I'm not as productive as before (before I could sustain 60 hours a week) eventhough I do feel I'm using my brain to the maximum... So yeah, past a certain age, you'll be happy to reduce your mental load. No question about it. And I feel quite relieved when Claud writes this classic algorith I have understood long ago and don't want to re-activate in my brain. And I feel quite disappointed when Claude misses the point and I have to code review it...

ehnto 1y ago

I have been coding and athletic training for about as long as eachother, your anecdote works. However just like in physical training, you should really spare your energy for stuff that you enjoy and actually progresses you. By using LLMs to do some of the stuff I have long gotten over, I have a bit more mental energy to tackle new problems I wouldn't have previously. As well LLMs just aren't actually that competent yet, so it's not like devs are completely hands off. Since I barely do boilerplate as I work across legacy projects, there's no way Claude Code today is writing half my code.