In a recent article, I tried to gain more precision on how the agentic shift to “judgment” carries an experientially significant reworking of a software engineer’s workflow, and how the common appeal to remaining “judgment” is too simplistic.
Regarding your poem prompt example, I have similarly discovered that technical precision and verbosity is of little value, especially as models improve. What is important are the key terms, which look about the same in your two prompts. LLMs fixate on terms and one malapropism could send them spinning in the wrong direction.
As a software engineer, I've always been involved in the project management aspects of the business, partly by necessity but also because I enjoy thinking about the big picture. Now that agents do most of the grunt work, I find myself more and more in the project manager role. That means tasks like your CSS pokeball example are no longer things I would consider doing myself. In an organization I would have less need of a design helper, and on my own I can accomplish more. It doesn't feel like a threat because I'm already entrenched with experience. But you're right to be concerned about humanity when there is little incentive to learn what good code and design is by working through CSS pokeballs, code katas, etc.
Reed, I appreciate the read and feedback. Your experience of shifting to a more “product engineering” role tracks. I guess the question is whether even that could narrow in the future—this post was meant to be seemingly exaggerated to activate that consideration. Glad you’re in a good spot.
Given how LLMs work, it’s hard to imagine a threat to true artistic creation. This section (https://argosy.substack.com/i/200059852/slop) illustrates how slop represents an acceleration of trends that were present before AI, and the need to pursue excellence. The biggest challenge in my mind is how to improve discernment while the difference between AI and human generated content becomes more and more subtle.
Regarding your poem prompt example, I have similarly discovered that technical precision and verbosity is of little value, especially as models improve. What is important are the key terms, which look about the same in your two prompts. LLMs fixate on terms and one malapropism could send them spinning in the wrong direction.
As a software engineer, I've always been involved in the project management aspects of the business, partly by necessity but also because I enjoy thinking about the big picture. Now that agents do most of the grunt work, I find myself more and more in the project manager role. That means tasks like your CSS pokeball example are no longer things I would consider doing myself. In an organization I would have less need of a design helper, and on my own I can accomplish more. It doesn't feel like a threat because I'm already entrenched with experience. But you're right to be concerned about humanity when there is little incentive to learn what good code and design is by working through CSS pokeballs, code katas, etc.
Reed, I appreciate the read and feedback. Your experience of shifting to a more “product engineering” role tracks. I guess the question is whether even that could narrow in the future—this post was meant to be seemingly exaggerated to activate that consideration. Glad you’re in a good spot.
Given how LLMs work, it’s hard to imagine a threat to true artistic creation. This section (https://argosy.substack.com/i/200059852/slop) illustrates how slop represents an acceleration of trends that were present before AI, and the need to pursue excellence. The biggest challenge in my mind is how to improve discernment while the difference between AI and human generated content becomes more and more subtle.