Comment by mattgreenrocks
5 days ago
I deeply resent the notion that we engineers should let non-engineers tell us how to achieve agreed-upon objectives (e.g. "use LLMs more!"). I'm happy to use LLMs when they are useful. If I have to babysit them excessively, then it's a double loss: I'm not accruing domain knowledge, and I'm wasting time. The contract of work I was sold in the early 2000s: decision makers specify what should be be built, and what the time constraints are. This bounds the space of possibilities along with the local engineering culture. I bear the responsibility of execution, clarifying requirements, and bringing up potential issues sooner rather than later.
However, at no point was the exact technical approach prescribed to me. It'd be asinine if someone came to me and said, "you need to be using VSCode, not vim." It's irrelevant to execution. Yet, that's exactly what's happening with LLMs.
The denial of agency to devs via prescriptive LLM edicts will only end badly.
> I deeply resent the notion that we engineers should let non-engineers tell us how to achieve agreed-upon objectives
This is not how it works. The technology will prevail or not based on whether people using it are noticeably more efficient using it, not the whims of your CEO - nor yours!
You then make an argument as to why you think the net gain will not be positive, which is fine, but that crucial question is what everything hinges on.