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I think I have LLM burnout

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Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#331

Post by lelanthran »

gitaarik wrote: post #178
16bitvoid wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We get it, you don't have a passion for the act or the craft, just the end result, but I'm absolutely sick of hearing it all over this site as if it's a universal truth that some of us just don't recognize yet. Sorry, some of us have a joy for programming where the how is just as important, if not more so, than the what and the why. No matter how much people proclaim that the how doesn't matter to them , it isn't goi…

But ultimately you got into this craft to solve a problem. That is how the craft developed. And when you build a very complex elaborate system, it can still have interesting technical challenges, even for a developer with AI. You should shift your technical insight to a higher abstraction level, where the AI cannot help anymore.

> . You should shift your technical insight to a higher abstraction level, where the AI cannot help anymore.

As a programmer, you also had to work at that higher abstraction level anyway.

It's a myth that you are "moving" up a level; you were always at that level, just not exclusively.

Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#332

Post by stasomatic »

vaylian wrote: post #242
jedbrooke wrote: post #236

> Some small part of me has started to dread reading LLM output because I know what I’m going to find. False assumptions and hallucinations. Emphatic, staccato fragments. Excessive emojis :sparkle:. :rocket: It’s not just me—these are real patterns (:barf:). It takes like 5 seconds to add a quick CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md with a quick style guide, or even just “EMOJI ARE FORBIDDEN” and I find it makes llm output signific…

You are completely right! Do you want me to write these markdown files for you?

And...

Me: "The gap, stated plainly:" stop using the type of language.

Claude: "You're right. That's one of the constructions your preferences told me to drop, and I used it anyway."

Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#333

Post by tayo42 »

sph wrote: post #260
tayo42 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave programing for what though?

Anything else, dude. Let’s do without the propaganda that programming is a cushy job, and any other job is menial underpaid grunt work.

I don't think a career switch is really as simple as go do anything you want.you need a skill, and need to go through the entry level pipeline again. You also need too find it interesting like the other commenter mentioned. Otherwise you do just end up as a cashier or something unskilled.

Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#335

Post by iainctduncan »

I think we are going to see a lot of programmers quitting the biz in the next couple of years. Everyone talks about the increased pressure, stress, and monotony of grinding with LLMs, and individual coders aren't seeing the benefit.

Burning out to grind out tons of code - for which you get paid no extra above your salary - is not a net win for coders. It's only a net win for the employers and it's turning coders into serfs. People are going to get wise and realize the electricians have a way better deal right now. This is no longer a nice way to earn money for a 20 to 40 year career.

Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#336

Post by MaKey »

KronisLV wrote: post #284
aakresearch wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? I thought everyone agrees that modern models post September 2025 (or whenever Opus or whatever 5.6789 was released) do not hallucinate, make things up, contradict themselves and can review their own output into perfection regardless of task, goal or context???? /s

What a take with no nuance. > do not hallucinate They do, just less. To the degree of being usable, as long as there are guardrails and they're used responsibly. For example, if there's code being output, there should be type checking and compilation, as well as code tests that prove that it works or that it doesn't - seeing how abysmal code coverage is in most of the projects I've seem, for whatever reason people th…

I think you missed the /s (for sarcasm) at the end.

Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#337

Post by Bratmon »

infinite_spin wrote: post #74
Bratmon wrote: post #3

This is legitimately the reason I'm looking to leave programming. I got into programming because the problems of programming were interesting to me. But if the problems go from "figure out why this calculator is off by one in France" to "Get this LLM to stop spamming cutsey emojis", then maybe it's time for a career change.

I got into programming to just build stuff, the coding is just a means to an end, try not to think too hard about the how and think more about the why and what

As I said downthread, that is exactly the opposite of why I got into this field, and I fully admit that I'm upset that people with your attitude were the ones vindicated by technological progress.

Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#338

Post by jug »

dpc_01234 wrote: post #13

I don't think I have a "burnout", but LLMs are really exhausting due to amount of pressure they generate. No one is really pushing me to increase my workload, but at every moment there is always something ready, done by my clankers or clankers of other people that I could be unblocking. In the past (before LLMs) it was already hard to keep up, but now it feels like there's 10x more things waiting at any given time, a…

This article is also related to exhausting AI through generating pressure and posted here recently:

AI coding is addictive. Engineers are paying the price https://leaddev.com/ai/ai-coding-is-addictive-engineers-are-...

Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#339

Post by KronisLV »

MaKey wrote: post #336
KronisLV wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a take with no nuance. > do not hallucinate They do, just less. To the degree of being usable, as long as there are guardrails and they're used responsibly. For example, if there's code being output, there should be type checking and compilation, as well as code tests that prove that it works or that it doesn't - seeing how abysmal code coverage is in most of the projects I've seem, for whatever reason people th…

I think you missed the /s (for sarcasm) at the end.

Yeah, my bad, though I’ve also heard those arguments more or less said genuinely - on one hand people hold LLMs to some unreasonably high standard, expecting to one shot apps before being deemed good, and on the other just outputting slop with no regard for the quality.

Re: I think I have LLM burnout

#340

Post by jug »

cpt_sobel wrote: post #266
springtimesun wrote: post #208

I am feeling very tired. Since I’ve started working with LLMs my output as a solo dev has easily gone up 20x. I’m closing client projects including ones that previously would have been far too ambitious to take on alone. Long running codebases are getting features that have dragged out for months or been sitting in the planning stages for even longer. And overall quality is way up now with more complete (and honestly…

I have a friend who is a confessed LLM-addict and has told me pretty much everything you mentioned (you might be my friend!), I just have a question I want to ask that I never do to him: Why do you feel the need to churn out so many "personal projects" if they burn you out that much? I think we can all agree on the exhaustiveness of reviewing tons of AI-generated code in our $JOB$ - then why extend this unpleasant si…

Addiction due to the dopamine hits of occasional struggle and then churning out apps that work: https://leaddev.com/ai/ai-coding-is-addictive-engineers-are-...
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