Ask HN: Do we need a support group for developers alienated by LLMs?
49 comments
This reflects many of the same things that I've been feeling. It's almost a feeling of grief at the lost of a career I really loved. Software engineering is starting to be unrecognizable to me.
Even if you're a solid software engineer and do your best to keep up in an AI world, you have to deal with all the indirect impacts that AI has had on collaboration, code quality, management decisions, product decisions, etc.
I don't have a solution and I'm really struggling to figure out what I want to do next. I've been unable to identify something that could provide me with income that hasn't been equally harmed by AI. I'm open to suggestions.
All that being said, I'd join such a support group
Even if you're a solid software engineer and do your best to keep up in an AI world, you have to deal with all the indirect impacts that AI has had on collaboration, code quality, management decisions, product decisions, etc.
I don't have a solution and I'm really struggling to figure out what I want to do next. I've been unable to identify something that could provide me with income that hasn't been equally harmed by AI. I'm open to suggestions.
All that being said, I'd join such a support group
I have also lost all sense of pride in my work. As well as all interest in learning anything new related to software, knowing it'll be of zero value to me personally. For many of us our job has always been a craft, being able to perfect our skills while delivering a product was part of the deal when working on a hard problem. All skilled workers who saw their job moved by the side of a conveyor belt in the past two centuries were alienated in the same way.
> interest in learning anything new related to software
I reckon the last large piece of technology I have learned is Kubernetes, and I doubt I’ll ever go any further.
On the other hand, I’ve sought some comfort in digital art, and learned a lot about Blender, level design, architecture, but it’s hard to feel like an impostor, after seeing myself as a programmer since I was in my teens. I wish I could find the strength and recklessness to just jump into the unknown and embrace a totally new career. I would have done it in a heartbeat in my 20s, now that I’m reaching 40 years old it is existentially terrifying.
I reckon the last large piece of technology I have learned is Kubernetes, and I doubt I’ll ever go any further.
On the other hand, I’ve sought some comfort in digital art, and learned a lot about Blender, level design, architecture, but it’s hard to feel like an impostor, after seeing myself as a programmer since I was in my teens. I wish I could find the strength and recklessness to just jump into the unknown and embrace a totally new career. I would have done it in a heartbeat in my 20s, now that I’m reaching 40 years old it is existentially terrifying.
The feeling comes and goes.
I'm a hands-on learner. Peers show me their agentic workflows. I'll nod and ask questions and tell them it's cool. But inside I'm spinning out fearing my future will look like these workflows. However, then time passes and that workflow or prototype amounts to nothing but spent credits and time. Then I relax.
I'm still part of the problem. I use these tools as a "better google" and require reference links to all of it's assertions.
I keep finding myself considering going into nursing or some other in-demand, well-paying job and wonder if I wait long enough the shift will be subsidized somehow.
I'm a hands-on learner. Peers show me their agentic workflows. I'll nod and ask questions and tell them it's cool. But inside I'm spinning out fearing my future will look like these workflows. However, then time passes and that workflow or prototype amounts to nothing but spent credits and time. Then I relax.
I'm still part of the problem. I use these tools as a "better google" and require reference links to all of it's assertions.
I keep finding myself considering going into nursing or some other in-demand, well-paying job and wonder if I wait long enough the shift will be subsidized somehow.
Seems like the need for a support group depends on whether the recent advent of LLMs in your specific workplace has led you to become a Centaur ("I'm now a 10x SWE") or a Reverse Centaur ("this is rapidly sucking the joy this job once held for me"). So, yes, there is very definitely a need for this as there are definitely people seeing themselves cast as the latter.
The 10x Centaur doesn't exist. They're just ten times as fast at creating tech debt.
I wouldn't consider myself an SWE, just an amateur programmer, so this is an honest question: In your opinion, is there such a case where the usage of AI in software engineering has either sped up the dev time or improved product reliability (or even both)?
It can churn out boilerplate but we already had templates to do that.
It can translate one language into another but we already had transpilers for that.
It can find bugs quickly but we already had static analysis. It also generates many plausible looking false positives.
It can translate one language into another but we already had transpilers for that.
It can find bugs quickly but we already had static analysis. It also generates many plausible looking false positives.
There's things it can do, so long as you use it as your complement, i.e. all the stuff you know is important you just go "ugh" when faced with. For me, that means unit tests. I can write them, I know why I should write them, I have professional experience with them, I can judge which unit tests are useful and which are make-work and which have missed the point entirely, but I'd rather not be the one to actually write them.
LLMs can write them for me, and I can happily look through them to make sure what the LLM made was neither brittle, nor testing unimportant things while missing the important stuff.
They can also help with code review, but only to a limited degree; a second pair of eyes to avoid lazy people going "LGTM", or the other way around time-wasting feedback from bike-shedders, but as with unit tests, right now you still need to be the kind of person who is happy to double-check its work — if you're the kind who was previously a little too quick to accept pull requests with a "LGTM", you may well be too willing to listen to irrelevant bike-shedding from the LLM or not realise it is missing the point of the code or the ticket.
But if you use it to replace the stuff you're already good at, and not help with the stuff you're weak at, it'll probably slow you down while also making the code worse.
LLMs can write them for me, and I can happily look through them to make sure what the LLM made was neither brittle, nor testing unimportant things while missing the important stuff.
They can also help with code review, but only to a limited degree; a second pair of eyes to avoid lazy people going "LGTM", or the other way around time-wasting feedback from bike-shedders, but as with unit tests, right now you still need to be the kind of person who is happy to double-check its work — if you're the kind who was previously a little too quick to accept pull requests with a "LGTM", you may well be too willing to listen to irrelevant bike-shedding from the LLM or not realise it is missing the point of the code or the ticket.
But if you use it to replace the stuff you're already good at, and not help with the stuff you're weak at, it'll probably slow you down while also making the code worse.
It's so intriguing to me how confidently people state this.
Millions of programmers out there, and you're saying there's not even a 1% chance that a single one of them is moving 10x faster?
Millions of programmers out there, and you're saying there's not even a 1% chance that a single one of them is moving 10x faster?
> Millions of programmers out there, and you're saying there's not even a 1% chance that a single one of them is moving 10x faster
Would that mean that every other claim to be moving 10x faster is an exaggeration? It evidently is, as these claims of massively increased productivity are purely anecdotal.
If the claims were ‘5% productive across the board’, it would be huge, but 1000%? That is a ludicrous tall story that requires extraordinary proof.
Would that mean that every other claim to be moving 10x faster is an exaggeration? It evidently is, as these claims of massively increased productivity are purely anecdotal.
If the claims were ‘5% productive across the board’, it would be huge, but 1000%? That is a ludicrous tall story that requires extraordinary proof.
My point still stands, the author is confidently stating something that's clearly just wrong. The alternative is that everyone is creating tech debt 10x as fast (while being completely oblivious to it.)
It's pretty obvious that's not what's happening. To pretend otherwise would suggest that every software developer everywhere is completely unaware of what tech debt is AND that they don't care at all.
Again: it's obviously wrong if we think about it for longer than 5 seconds. This is just pure emotional cope.
It's pretty obvious that's not what's happening. To pretend otherwise would suggest that every software developer everywhere is completely unaware of what tech debt is AND that they don't care at all.
Again: it's obviously wrong if we think about it for longer than 5 seconds. This is just pure emotional cope.
Can you find one? Can you hire them? It is basically a "snipe-hunt".
Faster != more productive.
That's a pedantic word game. The industry at-large doesn't track lines of code as a measure of velocity. So, yes, faster does mean more productive, since that's what any sane programmer means when they say "I built it faster". They don't mean that they literally slapped the keyboard faster than someone else.
And yet "slapping the keyboard faster" is all that AI does. It doesn't design architecture. It doesn't think. It doesn't reason. All it does is search for and copy-paste code from elsewhere on the internet. If you're lucky it might even be code that works and does what you want it to.
This is mostly false.
> It doesn't design architecture.
It can do that. Won't say it's amazing, but it can do it.
> It doesn't think. It doesn't reason.
Can you define these in ways that aren't tautologically limited to humans? I have yet to encounter anyone who has managed this while making such an objection to any form of AI.
> All it does is search for and copy-paste code from elsewhere on the internet.
They provably don't work like that. Both because local models exist, can be run offline, still spit out code to solve problems; and because some world records have been set by them, for some CS-related maths problems the best known method was invented by an AI which used an LLM as a component.
https://the-decoder.com/openais-ai-beats-every-human-at-atco...
https://deepmind.google/blog/alphaevolve-a-gemini-powered-co...
> It doesn't design architecture.
It can do that. Won't say it's amazing, but it can do it.
> It doesn't think. It doesn't reason.
Can you define these in ways that aren't tautologically limited to humans? I have yet to encounter anyone who has managed this while making such an objection to any form of AI.
> All it does is search for and copy-paste code from elsewhere on the internet.
They provably don't work like that. Both because local models exist, can be run offline, still spit out code to solve problems; and because some world records have been set by them, for some CS-related maths problems the best known method was invented by an AI which used an LLM as a component.
https://the-decoder.com/openais-ai-beats-every-human-at-atco...
https://deepmind.google/blog/alphaevolve-a-gemini-powered-co...
> Can you define these in ways that aren't tautologically limited to humans?
No, because that’s the point. It’s not intelligent because intelligence is a human characteristic.
> Both because local models exist, can be run offline
It’s not that they search interactively, it’s that the whole internet has been sucked into the training set.
No, because that’s the point. It’s not intelligent because intelligence is a human characteristic.
> Both because local models exist, can be run offline
It’s not that they search interactively, it’s that the whole internet has been sucked into the training set.
One out of a million still effectively counts as "zero".
I don't know if it's 10x, but there's definitely a huge acceleration in productivity. Attempts to deny that are basically just cope, or perhaps from people not using the tools correctly.
If I may ask: In what areas have you found the most acceleration in productivity? For me as an enthusiastic amateur programmer (whose enthusiasm is, arguably, greater than my technical abilities) the only reliable and sustainable way to use AI in building software is to treat it like an exceptionally knowledgeable (though not perfect!), infinitely patient tutor that guides me through programming problems I run into.
The minute I relinquish control and let it just write code for me I am doomed because AI cannot fix its own mistakes in anything of medium complexity or above - and then I have to dig down and try to understand code I haven't written which is, in my opinion, worse than having had to write it myself in the first place.
It's very good for bug fixes. I paste the log into the agent, and it has a good chance of suggesting the fix. I have to review it, but it has been a big time saver.
For new code, I treat it like a very knowledgeable mid level engineer who has a lot of patience to search the code base. We make changes a step at a time and I review them carefully and have it make changes I want. It's still a lot faster than doing it myself.
For new code, I treat it like a very knowledgeable mid level engineer who has a lot of patience to search the code base. We make changes a step at a time and I review them carefully and have it make changes I want. It's still a lot faster than doing it myself.
We should rephrase the multipliers. We are not 10x whatever, we are x/10 cheaper now to the companies that hire us. That’s the correct frame. AI is not here to make the life of engineers better; AI is here for the delight of companies
the first rule of LLM support group is you do not ask the LLM to summarize the support group meeting
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of people in the same boat as you.
I was already getting annoyed with the profession and its CV-driven development, and mostly saw code as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, but that only means I've not lost a sense of identity: I am absolutely also struggling to figure out what to do next.
I was already getting annoyed with the profession and its CV-driven development, and mostly saw code as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, but that only means I've not lost a sense of identity: I am absolutely also struggling to figure out what to do next.
> means to an end rather
Is that not what writing code is for? achieving a need?
If I want to feel the art or gaze upon my code masterpieces, I'll do that in my own side projects, no?
Is that not what writing code is for? achieving a need?
If I want to feel the art or gaze upon my code masterpieces, I'll do that in my own side projects, no?
Lots of people have very strong opinions about how code should look, often mutually incompatible with each other. Sometimes it's closer to cargo-culting a design pattern or other "best practice" than anything else, doing what they see others do without understanding why, even if they can emit words that are shaped like an explanation. On occasion, such people have made their preferences into my problem.
Because I'm relaxed about which style is used so long as it's not actively wrong, I'm also fairly relaxed about LLMs making code in a style I find weird… so long as it's not actively wrong, which it sometimes still is.
Because I'm relaxed about which style is used so long as it's not actively wrong, I'm also fairly relaxed about LLMs making code in a style I find weird… so long as it's not actively wrong, which it sometimes still is.
I'm feeling the same. I'm 21, basically just started my career.
Nothing felt better than writing code, and feeling proud of what I had built. Now I am being forced at work to use AI/LLMs because "it's faster" and I feel like my whole life, the career I fought for, has been sucked away.
Idk, might switch to driving trains, if they don't automate that too...
Nothing felt better than writing code, and feeling proud of what I had built. Now I am being forced at work to use AI/LLMs because "it's faster" and I feel like my whole life, the career I fought for, has been sucked away.
Idk, might switch to driving trains, if they don't automate that too...
You may laugh/cry with the contents of: https://thedailywtf.com
As with the sibling comment, I advise you to be skeptical of causation: lots of corporations have weird office politics and you'll need to rule that out before you can tell if it's AI or just your boss.
> Idk, might switch to driving trains, if they don't automate that too...
I'm surprised they've not already been entirely automated away. A few lines were created fully automated and seem to have managed fine ever since. Much easier than self-driving cars.
As with the sibling comment, I advise you to be skeptical of causation: lots of corporations have weird office politics and you'll need to rule that out before you can tell if it's AI or just your boss.
> Idk, might switch to driving trains, if they don't automate that too...
I'm surprised they've not already been entirely automated away. A few lines were created fully automated and seem to have managed fine ever since. Much easier than self-driving cars.
You are too young to even remotely reliably assert cause. Things get less fun when you do them more often, and you’ll be facing the realities of ‘professional’ development, if you’ve even started doing that yet.
Be careful to not falsely attribute this to AI just because the chronically online kids are all up in arms about it.
Be careful to not falsely attribute this to AI just because the chronically online kids are all up in arms about it.
I don't like generative AI/LLMs. They strip the enjoyable parts out of the work and leave only the tedium, and they cannot be relied upon. Never mind that they're essentially large-scale open source license violators.
My employer has been encouraging us to use LLMs in our coding work, and I've been resisting, but their encouragement is rapidly converting into requirement. We have to start submitting reports from Claude showing how much we utilized it. I've been desperately wanting to return more of my time to writing, and this LLM push has been the last psychological shove I needed to start moving away from the industry[1].
I'm sure I'll still code for fun, and for my own projects, but I think I'm going to be done with day-job coding unless AI turns out to be a bubble and/or the upcoming unsubsidized price tags throw cold water on the whole enterprise. If I can't make a living with writing, I may have to open a Cajun food truck or something.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48847511
My employer has been encouraging us to use LLMs in our coding work, and I've been resisting, but their encouragement is rapidly converting into requirement. We have to start submitting reports from Claude showing how much we utilized it. I've been desperately wanting to return more of my time to writing, and this LLM push has been the last psychological shove I needed to start moving away from the industry[1].
I'm sure I'll still code for fun, and for my own projects, but I think I'm going to be done with day-job coding unless AI turns out to be a bubble and/or the upcoming unsubsidized price tags throw cold water on the whole enterprise. If I can't make a living with writing, I may have to open a Cajun food truck or something.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48847511
1. Create a support group
2. Create agents to crawl the internet and invite anyone who has posted such sentiments
3. Best not to tell them that they were contacted via ai
More seriously if you set one up, it will likely attract many people.
2. Create agents to crawl the internet and invite anyone who has posted such sentiments
3. Best not to tell them that they were contacted via ai
More seriously if you set one up, it will likely attract many people.
These books aren't gonna read themselves. As long as there's a bit of guilt, it's not quite over.
I recall an HN post from some years back:
Someone was describing their time in Navy around the 70s or 80s. They’re job was to perform maintenance on some sort of electronic system on ship. They mentioned the training in electronic design repair they were given in the Navy and how good it was, setting them up for an EE degree later in life quite well.
They went on to describe that nowadays no one does that. That job now involves removing modular commercial off the shelf hardware components, sticking them on diagnostic machines and maybe ordering by a replacement or running a calibration. No useful technical skill or knowledge learned.
LLM driven development feels like a rough analog in software. Sure, there’s going to be new jobs created, they’ll just be less valuable and worse across almost every factor.
I could maybe be content with it if they didn’t just claw back remote work. Why the fuck should I still be sitting in an office hours a day when the agents do all the real work.
Someone was describing their time in Navy around the 70s or 80s. They’re job was to perform maintenance on some sort of electronic system on ship. They mentioned the training in electronic design repair they were given in the Navy and how good it was, setting them up for an EE degree later in life quite well.
They went on to describe that nowadays no one does that. That job now involves removing modular commercial off the shelf hardware components, sticking them on diagnostic machines and maybe ordering by a replacement or running a calibration. No useful technical skill or knowledge learned.
LLM driven development feels like a rough analog in software. Sure, there’s going to be new jobs created, they’ll just be less valuable and worse across almost every factor.
I could maybe be content with it if they didn’t just claw back remote work. Why the fuck should I still be sitting in an office hours a day when the agents do all the real work.
I'm sure a lot of engineers feel the same way, especially those who love programming and aren't just in it for the money. I have mixed feelings on the topic - on the one hand i'm quite happy not to write boilerplate code again and again, AI is good at that especially with the right instructions/skills so i'm not mad. It means that I think more in systems than in low-level code, and my cognitive load is lighter not having to remember all the details of different packages and libraries etc. I still enjoy the process of creating software, i'm just not as involved in the coding step. AI has also opened up a lot of opportunities to create things that would have taken me months, in a matter of days.
On the other hand I definitely feel like AI makes developers lazier, and if they're not properly reviewing the code it can have some disastrous consequences. It seems to have calmed down a bit but we went through a phase of swimming in a deluge of AI slop, I guess the temperature has been turned down a bit as I no longer get three emoji-filled documents for every change I introduce. It definitely feels like the last 30 years of my career have been swept away, but the past is gone and we can't get it back, and I have a wealth of experience that is still useful.
I don't know about other companies and industries but certainly the message from our leadership is that AI is here, and it's staying, so it's either a case of get on board or look for another job. I'm currently building AI augmented tools to stay relevant and hopefully survive the next round of job cuts.
On the other hand I definitely feel like AI makes developers lazier, and if they're not properly reviewing the code it can have some disastrous consequences. It seems to have calmed down a bit but we went through a phase of swimming in a deluge of AI slop, I guess the temperature has been turned down a bit as I no longer get three emoji-filled documents for every change I introduce. It definitely feels like the last 30 years of my career have been swept away, but the past is gone and we can't get it back, and I have a wealth of experience that is still useful.
I don't know about other companies and industries but certainly the message from our leadership is that AI is here, and it's staying, so it's either a case of get on board or look for another job. I'm currently building AI augmented tools to stay relevant and hopefully survive the next round of job cuts.
I’m glad you started your long comment the way that you did, because It made it so easy to discount.
I find AI-assisted development to be quite enjoyable. I’ve logged many, many years of full-time development prior to LLMs hitting the scene. By every indication i’ve been given, I am very good at my job. I do not do this job for the money. I wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near SV, both physically or spiritually.
I am not a rare exception or anything. My whole team is like this. I work with many people that’re like this. There is no shortage of voices speaking to this online. You’re in denial.
Drop this “you probably just don’t love the craft if you aren’t on my side” BS. it was old six months ago. It’s inexcusably ignorant now. If your view had such merit you wouldn’t need to be this intellectually dishonest. Accept that different people are different.
I find AI-assisted development to be quite enjoyable. I’ve logged many, many years of full-time development prior to LLMs hitting the scene. By every indication i’ve been given, I am very good at my job. I do not do this job for the money. I wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near SV, both physically or spiritually.
I am not a rare exception or anything. My whole team is like this. I work with many people that’re like this. There is no shortage of voices speaking to this online. You’re in denial.
Drop this “you probably just don’t love the craft if you aren’t on my side” BS. it was old six months ago. It’s inexcusably ignorant now. If your view had such merit you wouldn’t need to be this intellectually dishonest. Accept that different people are different.
Why do you feel that way? I'm a SWE and LLMs have 10x me as a developer
Are you earning 10x too? You are just cheaper to your employer… and you seem proud of that. But naive
What if one’s entire existence doesn’t revolve around the role they play in capitalist systems?
Comments like this make it blindingly apparent that this is just a VC’s web forum.
My existence has as substrate: shelter, food and healthcare. Money provides these via jobs. Once that’s covered, sure, pleasure comes.
I don’t like it, but that’s how im playing the game of life
I don’t like it, but that’s how im playing the game of life
> What if one’s entire existence doesn’t revolve around the role they play in capitalist systems.
Quit playing for a little bit. Quit working. See how quickly people derided and devalue you. If I don’t work, I don’t eat, I don’t get a place to sleep, etc. and “the role I play in the capitalist system” determines exactly how much of those things I can have.
I find it similar to “it’s not useful to compare yourself to others” adage. In society, you’re constantly evaluated or compared against others: when trying to find work, when trying to find a home, etc.
Sure maybe you can fuck off and try and live like Diogenes, but you’ll more likely to just collect a string of arrests or unwanted conflict with junkies.
You are entirely defined by your role in the capitalist system because you cannot exist outside of it.
Quit playing for a little bit. Quit working. See how quickly people derided and devalue you. If I don’t work, I don’t eat, I don’t get a place to sleep, etc. and “the role I play in the capitalist system” determines exactly how much of those things I can have.
I find it similar to “it’s not useful to compare yourself to others” adage. In society, you’re constantly evaluated or compared against others: when trying to find work, when trying to find a home, etc.
Sure maybe you can fuck off and try and live like Diogenes, but you’ll more likely to just collect a string of arrests or unwanted conflict with junkies.
You are entirely defined by your role in the capitalist system because you cannot exist outside of it.
yeah, but it also made us slaves of LLMs, let's be real, we will not do anything else than query AIs soon enough.
Take this vague, emotive, thought-terminating language to your journal or a pub rant or something. What does this even mean? Only one entity in this interaction has free will and it’s not the LLM. “Humanity reliant on another technology” is hardly news. You’re probably just getting a taste of your own medicine. Most people here have spent their careers at least ATTEMPTING to disrupt industries/areas of society in a way that makes people increasingly reliant on “technology”.
Thanks for stopping by to leave 4 separate, scathing, contempt-filled comments.
So I guess it is safe to assume that you would not be interested in a "a support group for developers alienated by LLMs?"
Yes, that is a rhetorical question.
So I guess it is safe to assume that you would not be interested in a "a support group for developers alienated by LLMs?"
Yes, that is a rhetorical question.
Seeing my career crumble in front of my eyes, seeing my identity as software engineer questioned in the span of a few years has been, to me, traumatic, and utterly alienating because non-tech people are not unaware of how world-shattering this technology is to our niche, and many of our fellow peers either collectively shrug, or are ecstatic not to have to write code any more.
I have been trying to reinvent myself, to set out on a path where I'm no longer a professional software engineer; where I will still enjoy coding software for myself, by hand, but the emotional turmoil at this radical change has not lessened, and I have been wondering if other people are feeling the same kind of alienation, and just feel lost and a bit aimless these days.
(Please, this is meant to be a serious post about emotions some of us might be going through, and we could do without comments saying this is just an overreaction and to just embrace the future)