6 ms·

> Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I must say I find this idea, and this wording, elitist in a negative way. I don't see any fundament

• michaelhoney 7mo ago
  This is a good response. Progress has always been resisted by incumbents
• card_zero 7mo ago
  So you put these all in the same category: gaining knowledge, gaining abilities, and just obtaining things. I gatekeep my bike, I keep it behind a gate. If you break the gate open and democratize my bike, you're an idiot.
  • ipdashc 7mo ago
    I'm not sure how you're getting that from their post? None of the four things mentioned (book publishing, web publishing, open-source software, computer hardware) involve stealing someone's property, he's saying that the ability to produce those things widened and the cost went down massively, so more people were able to gain access to them. Nobody stole your bike, but the bike patents expired and a bunch of bike factories popped up, so now everyone can get a cheap bike.
    • card_zero 7mo ago
      I did have misgivings about saying that because I'm from the old "information wants to be free" school. But the subject was idiocy, and the point isn't to say that the bike was stolen, but that the bike-taker didn't do anything clever, or have much of a learning experience. Maybe it's of value that any idiot can do this, but we're still idiots.
  • WillPostForFood 7mo ago
    it is more like: You gatekeep your bike, you keep it behind a gate, you don't let anyone else ride it. Your neighbor got a nicer bike for Christmas, rode it by your house and now you are sad because you aren't the special kid with the bike any more, you are just regular kid like your neighbor.
    • DaRealGraybeard 7mo ago
      Jesus that's brutal. Accurate. But I feel attacked ;p
    • _zagj 7mo ago
      Yeah, if you studied and mastered all of the various disciplines required for fabricating a bicycle, and then fabricated your own by hand and offered to do likewise for others, sometimes in exchange for compensation, sometimes for free (provided others could use the bike), only for some machine that mass produces bikes to (informal) spec that was built by studying all of the designs you used for the bikes you made to suddenly become widely and cheaply available.
      • deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
      • senordevnyc 7mo ago
        Yeah, and that machine that replaces you was built by engineers. We can dish it out, but we can’t take it.
    • kalskjUQh 7mo ago
      No, both bikes are owned by a $trillion corporation who collects a monthly rent.
  • gzread 7mo ago
    Actually he would be very wise, for he then has a bike and can ride it or sell it for money. You have to learn capitalist thinking to succeed in this economy.
  • spyder 7mo ago
    Using physical analogs for virtual things is not the best choice, for example: Would you give a copy of your bike, or copy of your food to your poor neighbor kid if you could copy it as easily and as cheaply as digital products?
• ares623 7mo ago
  how is 2-3 centralized providers of this new technology "democratization"?
  • satvikpendem 7mo ago
    There are lots of open weight models
  • lovelearning 7mo ago
    It's _relatively_ democratic when compared to these counterfactual gatekeeping scenarios: - What if these centralized providers had restricted their LLMs to a small set of corporations / nations / qualified individuals? - What if Google that invented the core transformer architecture had kept the research paper to themselves instead of openly publishing it? - What if the universities / corporations, who had worked on concepts like the attention mechanism so essential for Google's paper, had instead gatekept it to themselves? - What if the base models, recipes, datasets, and frameworks for training our own LLMs had never been open-sourced and published by Meta/Alibaba/DeepSeek/Mistral/many more?
    • KellyCriterion 7mo ago
      > - What if Google that invented the core transformer architecture had kept the research paper to themselves instead of openly publishing it? I'm pretty sure that someone else would have come around the corner with a similar idea some time later, because the fundamentals of these stuff were already discussed decases before "Attention is all you need" paper, the novel thing they did was combining existing knowhow into a new idea and making it public. A couple of ingredients of the base research for this is decades old (interestingly back then some European universities were leading the field)
      • app134 7mo ago
        > I'm pretty sure that someone else would have come around the corner with a similar idea some time later, because the fundamentals of these stuff were already discussed decases before I am not trying to be dismissive, but this could apply to all research ever
• OneMorePerson 7mo ago
  This is technically true in a lot of ways, but also intellectual and not identifying with what the comment was expressing. It's legitimately very frustrating to have something you enjoy democratized and feel like things are changing. It would be like if you put in all this time to get fit and skilled on mountain bikes and there was a whole community of people, quiet nature, yada yada, and then suddenly they just changed the rules and anyone with a dirt bike could go on the same trails. It's double damage for anyone who isn't close to retirement and built their career and invested time (i.e. opportunity cost) into something that might become a lot less valuable and then they are fearful for future economic issues. I enjoy using LLMs and have stopped writing code, but I also don't pretend that change isn't painful.
  • lovelearning 7mo ago
    The change is indeed painful to many of us, including me. I, too, am a software engineer. LLMs and vibe coding create some insecurity in my mind as well. However, our personal emotions need not turn into disparaging others' use of the same skills for their satisfaction / welfare / security. Additionally, our personal emotions need not color the objective analysis of a social phenomenon. Those two principles are the rationales behind my reply.
    • OneMorePerson 7mo ago
      I appreciate that rationale, I also see the importance of those two principles and I think there's a lot of value there. I suppose I see "any idiot" as a more general phrase, like "idiot proof", not directly meaning that anyone who uses a LLM is an idiot. However I can also see how it would be seen as disparaging. Also, while there's a lot of examples of people entrenching into a certain behavior or status and causing problems, I also think society is a bit harsh on people who struggle with change. For people who are less predisposed to be ok with change feels like a lot of the time the response is "just deal with it and don't be selfish, this new XYZ is better for society overall". Society is pretty much made up of personal emotions on some level. I don't think we should go around attacking people, but very few things can be considered truly objective in the world of societal analysis.
• slopinthebag 7mo ago
  People actually value the effort and dedication required to master a craft. Imagine we invent a drug that allows everyone to achieve olympic level athletic performance, would you say that it "democratises" sports? No, that would be ridiculous.
  • lovelearning 7mo ago
    It does technically democratize the exhilarating experiences of that level of performance. Likely also democratizes negative aspects like injuries, extreme dieting, jealousy, neglecting relationships. That said, if we zoom out and review such paradigm shifts over history, we find that they usually result in some new social contracts and value systems. Both good expert writers and poor novice writers have been able to publish non-fiction books from a few centuries now. But society still doesn't perceive them as the same at all. A value system is still prevalent and estimated primarily from the writing itself. This is regardless of any other qualifications/disqualifications of authors based on education / experience / nationality / profession etc. At the individual level too, just because book publishing is easy doesn't mean most people want to spend their time doing that. After some initial excitement, people will go do whatever are their main interests. Some may integrate these democratized skills into their main interests. In my opinion, this historical pattern will turn out to be true with the superdrug as well as vibe coding. Some new value will be seen in the swimming or running itself - maybe technique or additional training over and above the drug's benefits. Some new value will be discovered in the code itself - maybe conceptual clarity, algorithmic novelty, structural cleanliness, readability, succinctness, etc. Those values will become the new foundations for future gatekeeping.
    • slopinthebag 7mo ago
      The exhilarating experience is a byproduct of the effort it took to obtain. Replace drug with exoskeleton or machine, my point is the same. The way you democratise stuff like this is removing barriers to skill development so that everyone can learn a craft, skill, train their bodies etc. But I do agree, if everyone can build software then the allure of it along with the value will be lost. Vibe coding is only a superpower as long as you're one of the select few doing it. Although I imagine it will continue to become a niche thing, anyone who thinks everyone and their grandma will be vibing bespoke software is out to lunch. Personally I think there is a certain je ne sais quoi about creating software that cannot be distilled to some mechanical construct, in the same way it exists for art, music, etc. So beyond assembly line programming, there will always be a human involved in the loop and that will be a differentiating factor.
• _zagj 7mo ago
  > elitist in a negative way. It's funny you say that, because I've seen plenty of the reverse elitism from "AI bros" on HN, saying things like: > Now that I no longer write code, I can focus on the engineering or > In my experience, it's the mediocre developers that are more attached to the physical act of writing code, instead of focusing on the engineering As if getting further and further away from the instructions that the CPU or GPU actually execute is more, not less, a form of engineering, instead of something else, maybe respectable in its own way, but still different, like architecture. It's akin to someone claiming that they're not only still a legitimate novelist for using ChatGPT or a legitimate illustrator for using stable diffusion, but that delegating the actual details of the arrangement of words into sentences or layers and shapes of pigment in an image, actually makes them more of a novelist or artist, than those who don't.
  • lovelearning 7mo ago
    Yes, both are forms of elitism.
    • _zagj 7mo ago
      Yeah, and one is at least plausibly justifiable (though still potentially unfounded), while the other is absurd on its face.
• iExploder 7mo ago
  > I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. It was very democratized before, almost anyone could pick up a book or learn these skills on the internet. Opportunity was democratized for a very long time, all that was needed was the desire to put in the work. OP sounds frustrated but at the same time the societal promise that was working for longest time (spend personal time specializing and be rewarded) has been broken so I can understand that frustration..
  • fragmede 7mo ago
    It goes past software though. That's just the common ground we share on here. A lifetime ago I was a souhd engineer, and knew how to mic up a rock band. I've since forgotten it all, but I was at a buddies practice space and the opportunity came up to mic their setup. so I dredged up decades old memories, only to take a photo and sent it to ChatGPT, which has read every book on sound engineering and mic placement, every web forum that was open to the public where someone dropped some knowledge out there on the Internet for free. So, damned if it didn't come up with some good suggestions! I wish I could say it only made wrong and stupid suggestions. A lot about mic placement is subjective, but in telling it the kind of sound we were after, it was able to tell us which direction to go to get warmer or harsher. So it's not just software that's coming to an end, everything else is as well. But; billionaires wives will still need haircuts (women billionaires will also need haircuts), so hairdresser will be the last profession.
    • Kye 7mo ago
      I remember the cosmetology department on the other side of the tech school I went to was a common target of mockery on the "tech" tech side. Life as a hairdresser isn't always easy, but it's real skill. And unlike computer touching, requires certification.
  • mikkupikku 7mo ago
    I'm mad about Ozempic. For years I toiled, eating healthy foods while other people stuffed their faces with pizza and cheese burgers. Everybody had the opportunity to be thin like me, but they didn't take that and earn it like me. So now instead of being happy about their new good fortune and salvaged health, I'm bitter and think society has somehow betrayed me and canceled promises. /s, obviously I would hope except I've actually seen this sentiment expressed seriously.
• sdevonoes 7mo ago
  The real litmus test is whether one would allow LLMs to determine a medical procedure without human check. As of 2026, I wouldn’t. In the same sense I prefer to work with engineers with tons of experience rather than fresh graduates using LLMs
• Wilder7977 7mo ago
  Democratizing? A handful of companies harvesting data and building products on top of it is democratizing? Open research papers, that everyone can access is democratizing knowledge. Accessibile worldwide courses, maybe (like open universities). But LLMs are not quite the sane. This is taking knowledge from everyone and, in the best case, paywalling it. I agree in spirit that the original comment was classist, but in this context your statements are also out of place, in my opinion.
• latexr 7mo ago
  > I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. This parroted argument is getting really tired. It signals either astroturfing or someone who just accepts what they are sold without thinking. LLMs aren’t “democratising” anything. There’s no democracy in being mostly beholden to a few companies which own the largest and most powerful models, who can cut you off at any time, jack up the prices to inaccessibility, or unilaterally change the terms of the deal. You know what’s truly “democratic” and without “gatekeeping”? Exactly what we had before, an internet run by collaboration filled with free resources for anyone keen enough to learn.
  • zpeti 7mo ago
    > There’s no democracy in being mostly beholden to a few companies which own the largest and most powerful models, who can cut you off at any time, jack up the prices to inaccessibility, or unilaterally change the terms of the deal. LOL. Maybe you are referring to OpenAI and Anthropic? Yes they have codex and opus. But about 1-2 months behind them is Grok, Gemini, and then 2-3 months behind them are all the other models available in cursor, from chinese open source models to composer etc. How you can possibly use this "big company takes everything away" narrative is ridiculous, when you can probably use models for free that are abour 2 months behind the best models. This is probably the most uncentralised tech boom ever. (I mean openAI is in such a bad state, I wouldn't be surprised if they lose almost their entire lead and user base within 6-12 months and are basically at the level of small chinese llm developers).
    • antonvs 7mo ago
      I agree with your general point, but there's an important qualifier: > when you can probably use models for free that are about 2 months behind the best models. You can use them for free, but training of near-SOTA foundation models is currently not an open-source process, and it's funded almost exclusively by large and/or wealthy corporations. That's a weak point at the moment from the perspective of openness.
  • app134 7mo ago
    Dismissing someone with a different opinion as astroturfing is not productive. There are loads of high performance open source LLMs on the market that compete with the big 3. I have not seen this level of community engagement and collaboration since the open-source boom 20 years ago.
• johnwheeler 7mo ago
  Exactly. How ridiculous. The world doesn’t owe ‘principal engineers’ shit. I hate to work with people like this. —- from a ‘principal engineer’
• throwA29B 7mo ago
  Elitism is good. Elitism is just. There is absolutely nothing wrong with elitism. Skill based one of course.
• accounting2026 7mo ago
  While I can see your point I also think it is not directly relevant to OP. Firstly, I don't think OP meant that people are idiots for using LLM's, it was just a way of saying that skill is no longer required so even idiots can do it whereas it used to be something that required high skill. As for the comparisons - some are partly comparable to the current situation, but there's some differences as well. Sure books and online content enabled others to join, thereby reducing the "moat" for those who built careers on esoteric knowledge. But it didn't make things _that_ easy - it still required years of invested time to become a good developer. Also, it happened very gradually and while the developer pie was growing, and the range of tech growing, so developers who kept on top of technology (like OP did) could still be valuable. Of course, no one knows fully how it will play out this time around; maybe the pie will get even bigger, maybe there's still room for lots of developers and the only difference is that the tedious work is done. Sure, then it is comparable. But let's be honest, this has a very real chance of being different (humans inventing AI surely is something special!) and could result in skill-sets collapsing in value at record time. And perhaps worse, without opening new doors. Sure, new types of jobs may appear but they may be so different that they are essentially completely different careers. It is not like in the past you just needed to learn a new programming language.
• overgard 7mo ago
  Coding is one of the least gate kept things in history. Literally the only obstacle is "do I want to put in the time to learn it". All Claude is doing is remixing all the free stuff that was already a google search away.
  • lovelearning 7mo ago
    I suggest trying to find out how the things you're taking for granted - time, literacy, books - remain barriers for many people in many parts of the world.
    • oblio 7mo ago
      LOL, you sound like people "democratizing" finance with crypto. I'm sure that's why they're investing 1 trillion in AI, for the poor illiterates.
• ThrowawayR2 7mo ago
  > "removal of gatekeeping" Gates were put in place for lawyers, doctors, and engineers (real ones, not software "engineers") because the cost of their negligence and malpractice was ruined lives and death. Gatekeeping has value. Software quality, reliability, and security was already lousy before the advent of LLMs, making it increasingly clear that the gate needed to be kept. Gripes about "gatekeeping" are a dogwhistle for "I would personally benefit from the bar being lowered even further".
  • lovelearning 7mo ago
    The argument for lawyers, doctors and "real" engineers seems like a strawman here. This discussion is specifically about lowering the barriers of programming and creating using software. I haven't said anything at all about other professions nor do I think my arguments for democratizing software creation apply to law, medicine, or "real" engineering. There's also a false equivalence in the software part of your comment. It equates lowering of barriers for recreational/hobby coding with software engineering for serious purposes. Since you dismiss me as a dogwhistle, I hope my terming your argument as elitist, strawmanish, and full of false equivalences is only seen as fair.