Comment by kristjank

When we outsource the parts of programming that used to demand our complete focus and creativity, do we also outsource the opportunity for satisfaction? Can we find the same fulfillment in prompt engineering that we once found in problem-solving through code?

Most of AI-generated programming content I use are comments/explanations for legacy code, closely followed by tailored "getting started" scripts and iterations on visualisation tasks (for shitty school assignments that want my pyplots to look nice). The rest requires an understanding, which AI can help you achieve faster (it's read many a book related to the topic, so it can recall information a lot like an experienced colleague may), but it can't confer capital K Knowledge or understanding upon you. Some of the tasks it performs are grueling, take a lot of time to do manually, and provide little mental stimulation. Some may be described as lobotomizing and (in my opinion) may mentally damage you in the "Jack Torrance typewriter" kinda way.

It makes me able to work on the fun parts of my job which possess the qualities the article applauds.