Brian Douglas

On social media and YouTube I've been seeing a lot of influential developers complain about how LLM usage in programming has left them feeling. Mostly these complaints are along the lines of "I feel like my skillset is no longer important", "I feel no satisfaction when an LLM successfully writes a bunch of code for me", or "I feel like my career is over, the LLM will replace me". What a bunch of cry babies.

Let's start with the first one "my skillset is no longer important". What is your skillset? Is it writing code, solving problems, learning, understanding, working with a team? Because all those are still important. GenAI doesn't replace any of these things. You might be able to get good results out of the machine, but that is because you know what to ask it. Just like you knew what to search for on stackoverflow before the advent of ChatGPT. If you are working on a product you still need to understand the codebase, and it's often still better for you to write the code yourself. You already know how to communicate with a computer via code. Programming languages are better at communicating intent than English. So why would you try to explain to one computer in English the code you want write on another computer. That makes no sense and you have to pay for it.

The LLM gives a benefit if you need to generate boilerplate, sure. But for complex business logic it's still up to you. The problem is that many influencers are just writing boilerplate all the time. They are setting up green field projects that no one cares about. They are not maintaining twenty year old legacy code bases with real users. And the thing is, a good dev can also spew out green field code at a rapid rate. We've been doing it forever. LLMs make this faster, but they don't replace you. And if you feel bad about using them, just do it yourself. It's not really going to take much more time, and you will gain a better understanding of the code and project you are trying to build. Not everything needs outsourced.

If you are feeling down about AI and the future of your career, then get off social media. This nonsense mindset that you have been replaced or are redundant as a human only exists on social media. It is a narrative spun by the LLM vendors to sell their product to other businesses. Their target market is not you, it's the company you work for. Selling the idea that if you use their tool you can cut your staff costs is great. There is big money in that. But it's a load of guff, you know it and I know it. Don't be fooled. Take this one fact for example. Their main products are tools for developers. Why would they be making a product for the very user they are apparently destroying? They aren't. It's a tool. It might make you more productive, it might not. It's gamble on cost vs return. Just like every other paid software service. The tools changes the way you work. It speeds you up. But it does not make you redundant. The layoffs are economical. And let's be honest since the dawn of the industry you could go into any software shop and sack a load of people who are not necessary for the success of the business. Just look at the HR team and the middle managers. Christ, if they still have a job then AI has obviously not had much of an impact.

The second common complaint is something along the lines of "I feel no satisfaction when an LLM writes my code". Well then write it yourself. You don't have to use the tool if you don't want to.

"But my company mandates I use my tokens". Use the tokens for research. It's not complicated.

Listen, if using the tool makes you unhappy. Your productivity will go down. Happy workers are productive workers. If the tool makes you less productive, then why use the tool? The turtle won the race, not the hare.

The final complaint, which is something like "my career is over, the industry is dead", is all doom and gloom.

Well I'm unemployed for the first time in 12 years. So yeah you could be right. Or we could be in an economic environment where hiring is not an option for many companies. Costs are too high and there is no budget to hire. It's never the worst case or best case. It's always soemthing inbetween. What I do know is I can't tell the future and neither can you. Are you in work? great your job is still necessary. Are you out of work? Well then here is some tough love from me.

Adapt, improvise, and overcome.

It's survival of the fittest. Sink or swim. It's up to you.