Comment by cerpins
5 days ago
What worries me about this is that the benefit of well practiced developers using AI to boost their productivity is there, but what happens to the new developers that piggyback off of LLM tooling too much and end up with worse understanding as a whole?
I think this has always been a problem; eg the students who do all their assignments in groups and coast through with a cursory understanding of their degree. Or those who cheat.
If someone doesn't want to learn, there have always been ways to avoid it. Now it's easier with LLMs, that's true. But for people who do want to learn, I think it's also easier now with LLMs.
I'm not sure where the equilibrium will land, in terms of whether we'll end up with more people with a deep understanding, or more people with a shallow understanding. Or maybe the ratio will end up being the same, but there will just be more people in both groups! Ie the ease of learning will pull some of the previously shallow learners into developing a deep understanding, and the ease of coasting will pull up people who were never into development before into being shallow learners.