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Feels like you could make a similar argument with any tool that is leaps and bounds better or makes your job 'easy'. Dreamweaver was Dunning-Kruger as a progra

by serf 1y ago

Feels like you could make a similar argument with any tool that is leaps and bounds better or makes your job 'easy'. Dreamweaver was Dunning-Kruger as a program for HTML-non-experts. Photoshop was Dunning-Kruger as a program for non-airbrushers/editors/touchup-artists. (I don't actually believe this, no they weren't.) Or, we could use the phrase Dunning-Kruger to refer to specific psych stuff rather than using it as a catch-all for any tool that instills unwarranted confidence.

kcatskcolbdi 1y ago
You cannot make a similar argument for any tool that makes jobs easier, because the argument is dependent on the unique attribute of LLMs: providing wrong answers confidently.
- BoorishBears 1y ago
  You can though with some creativity. There are lots of tools that give a wrong solution that appears correct, and easier ones tend to do that the most. Plenty of people who needed a real dev team to design an application probably hoped on Dreamweaver, were suddenly able to bumble their way some interface that looked impressive but would never scale (even to the original goal level of scale mind you). - Any time you have a tool that lowers the barrier of entry to a field, you get a spectrum of people from those who have right-sized expectations and can suddenly do the thing themselves, to people who massively overestimate how easy the field is to master and get in over their heads. This isn't even a programming thing, off the top of my head Sharkbites get this kind of rep in plumbling You could argue the RPi did this to hardware, where people are using a Linux SBC to do the job a 555 timer could do and saying that's hardware. Point-and-shoot, then smartphone cameras, did this and now a lot more people think they can be a photographer based on shots their phone spends more processing power per image than we used to get to the moon on.
janalsncm 1y ago
The problem isn’t tools making someone better. An excavator will make me a superior ditch digger than if I just have a shovel. That’s progress. The issue is making someone feel like they did a good job when they actually didn’t. LLMs that make 800 line PRs for simple changes aren’t making things better, no matter how many “done” emojis it adds to the output.
- antonvs 1y ago
  > LLMs that make 800 line PRs for simple changes Do you have any examples of this? Because my experience has been the opposite. In many cases LLMs will make minimal changes to achieve some goal.
jayd16 1y ago
Unlike the expertise that Dunning-Kruger to refers to, the skill to create art and understand art are separate. Possibly Dreamweaver might fit because it does give you the sense that making a website is easy but you might not understand what goes into a maintainable website.

by serf 1y ago

kcatskcolbdi 1y ago

You cannot make a similar argument for any tool that makes jobs easier, because the argument is dependent on the unique attribute of LLMs: providing wrong answers confidently.

BoorishBears 1y ago
You can though with some creativity. There are lots of tools that give a wrong solution that appears correct, and easier ones tend to do that the most. Plenty of people who needed a real dev team to design an application probably hoped on Dreamweaver, were suddenly able to bumble their way some interface that looked impressive but would never scale (even to the original goal level of scale mind you). - Any time you have a tool that lowers the barrier of entry to a field, you get a spectrum of people from those who have right-sized expectations and can suddenly do the thing themselves, to people who massively overestimate how easy the field is to master and get in over their heads. This isn't even a programming thing, off the top of my head Sharkbites get this kind of rep in plumbling You could argue the RPi did this to hardware, where people are using a Linux SBC to do the job a 555 timer could do and saying that's hardware. Point-and-shoot, then smartphone cameras, did this and now a lot more people think they can be a photographer based on shots their phone spends more processing power per image than we used to get to the moon on.

janalsncm 1y ago

The problem isn’t tools making someone better. An excavator will make me a superior ditch digger than if I just have a shovel. That’s progress. The issue is making someone feel like they did a good job when they actually didn’t. LLMs that make 800 line PRs for simple changes aren’t making things better, no matter how many “done” emojis it adds to the output.

antonvs 1y ago
> LLMs that make 800 line PRs for simple changes Do you have any examples of this? Because my experience has been the opposite. In many cases LLMs will make minimal changes to achieve some goal.

jayd16 1y ago

Unlike the expertise that Dunning-Kruger to refers to, the skill to create art and understand art are separate. Possibly Dreamweaver might fit because it does give you the sense that making a website is easy but you might not understand what goes into a maintainable website.