Comment by ben_w

While I'd agree with your first line:

> The problem with LLM is when they're used for creativity or for thinking.

And while I also agree that it's currently closer to "AI is the new VBA" because of the current domain in which consumer AI* is most useful.

Despite that, I'd also aver that being useful in simply "many" contexts will make AI "the new electricity”. Electricity itself is (or recently was) only about 15% of global primary power, about 3 TW out of about 20 TW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consum...

Are LLMs 15% of all labour? Not just coding, but overall? No. The economic impact would be directly noticeable if it was that much.

Currently though, I agree. New VBA. Or new smartphone, in that we ~all have and use them, while society as a whole simultaneously cringes a bit at this.

* Narrower AI such as AlphaFold etc. would, in this analogy, be more like a Steam Age factory which had a massive custom steam engine in the middle distributing motive power to the equipment directly: it's fine at what it does, but you have to make it specifically for your goal and can't easily adapt it for something else later.