@mjg59 also what I told you is truthful: I would probably not have picked up coding in the current environment. With AIgen menacing many creative jobs I might have encountered a vocational crisis. One we should perhaps anticipate in genZ today.

@mjg59 I know that "this time it's different and this technology is really bad for us" is a well trodden reactionary argument, and I'm truly sad to be on the reactionary side this time, but also *this time it's different*.
This time what's in the balance is the ability to apply cognition on one's own. Multiple studies point to the fact that using these systems are deskilling in major ways. This looks like a health hazard in the same way that asbestos is good for isolation but terrible for health

@mjg59 you have to look at the full picture. What you describe looks good because it looks like empowering: I know something about it, i early adopted a programming language whose promise is to empower everyone to build reliable software. But LLMs in their current political climate ain't that. They're not empowering because they create dependency to their use, and in doing so concentrate even more power in the hands of even fewer corpos. Letting you build stuff you don't understand is not power

@mjg59 you mean "not by paying monthly $200 to a wanna be megacorp"? Yeah, not like that indeed.

13 years old me started coding on an old Windows 3.1 workstation with ~$0 monthly cost. If I were to enter the industry now, when one has to invest in LLMs, which btw also prevent from gaining actual skills and erode existing skills, I would simply have not done that. Must be why genZ hates LLMs

I don't see how one can look at the thought-extruding machine and think "surely it will liberate me"