The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway • Hacker News Board

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#281

Post by slfnflctd » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:32 PM UTC

dannersy wrote: post #258

I think folks ITT are trivializing the issue here. Many keep drawing parallels to LLMs being akin to the loom or calculator. That seems intellectually dishonest to me. Those tools were not anthropomorphized interfaces, nor were they instant gratification. To do significant things with a calculator, you still had to know maths, order of operations, formulas, etc. We didn't lose mathematicians as a result of the calcul…

> nor did the calculator play with our emotions

It seems to me this here is the dangerous 'force multiplier' for destructive outcomes.

It's one thing for a kid to become obsessed with a fictional character. It's a whole different playing field when that character can talk back, remember things, and potentially surface all kinds of subject matter which cannot be predicted and could at times be harmful.

Not even remotely the same level of impact. I think we're almost at the point where LLM education (as in, teaching awareness of the basic tech and its shortcomings) needs to start in Kindergarten.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#282

Post by 27183 » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:33 PM UTC

Levitz wrote: post #24

msdz wrote: post #2

> LLM’s amplify what you already have: opinions, structure, frameworks. So far, so agreeable, but… > If you have thoughts, they come out sharper and faster. I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles. Actual muscles need exercise to stay in shape (let alone grow), so does the brain. Can we really be sure that thou…

>Conversely, I also am a user of LLMs (true shocker these days, I know), and am noticing a speedup in areas I was already familiar with, and a quicker introduction to new ones. The obvious benefit cannot be denied, and doing so regardless makes you look uninformed. My largest concern comes from something tangential to this: I'm not sure we're all that good at deciding what should be learned and sticking to it. Silly…

If you don't know regex--how to write them, how to use them, what they're good for, what they're not good for--what makes you think you're competent to review a PR containing one?

If you don't know how to regex and you let your imaginary LLM friend write one for you, and you foist that upon your colleagues for review, you've just abused their trust. Because they, being ethical, honest engineers, must now do all the work you neglected except they're doing it at review time instead of at the time of writing.

Or maybe they're dishonest and unethical and they'll just maliciously or negligently approve the PR without actually reviewing the regex.

Either way the situation is completely rotten. You can never ethically use an LLM to do something you're not competent to do yourself.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#283

Post by bluefirebrand » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:34 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #248

> And then there is the situation about junior engineers. There are actually two different points in there: a) you cannot trust the effort behind your junior’s code anymore, and b) seniors have no incentive left to teach juniors. If you are bringing in juniors with the expectation that they won’t produce any value for some time then it might be better to block them from using LLMs. Do this and you will get a better u…

> If you are bringing in juniors with the expectation that they won’t produce any value for some time then it might be better to block them from using LLMs

A) I think many companies no longer view juniors as an investment, they want them to be productive. They view juniors as "cheaper almost-seniors"

B) Blocking them from using LLMs would mean acknowledging that there is a downside to having your employees using LLMs. If they prevent your juniors from improving, what negative effect are they having on your seniors?

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#284

Post by bluefirebrand » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:37 PM UTC

cognitiveinline wrote: post #153

eamonnsullivan wrote: post #134

The one thing that had me reading to the end was the mention near the top of the environmental impact of LLMs, but he never got back to it. I'm currently writing an onboarding doc for my team, encouraging LLM use for some tasks. (OK, well, I'm actually procrastinating by reading HN). At the same time, I'm in a darkened office with tinfoil on the windows and a fan pointed at me because it's hell outside and it has bee…

Your commute is worse for the environment than your day's token usage, by a magnitude.

Hey, I'm happy to work from home. I'm not the one choosing to have a commute, companies are forcing that.

Wait a sec, aren't companies also making LLM usage compulsory?

Wow it's starting to sound like they don't care about the environment!

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#285

Post by sethammons » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:42 PM UTC

Hugsbox wrote: post #268

mcv wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few months ago, I heard a keynote speaker claim that LLMs did not give any measurable productivity gains, except in two fields: customer support and software development, where they resulted in about 30% productivity improvement. I forgot if he presented any sources, and if he did, I forgot those, but it sounds plausible to me. But instead of productivity, I'm much more interested in using it to improve quality. Yo…

I don't know how they're measuring productivity for customer support, but it certainly isn't in terms of customer satisfaction. People have never been happy with chatbots when they're trying to reach a human.

We are getting ai responses from cloud providers. From both aws and google, my teams have received obviously ai generated and non-applicable advice.

The latest was that we need to write in object pooling in their client code, an option that doesn't exist yet in _their_ client code. Like, yo, that is a you-problem on performance bottlenecks; we expect you to provide solutions.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#286

Post by sethammons » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:53 PM UTC

jonathanlydall wrote: post #250

msdz wrote: post #2

> LLM’s amplify what you already have: opinions, structure, frameworks. So far, so agreeable, but… > If you have thoughts, they come out sharper and faster. I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles. Actual muscles need exercise to stay in shape (let alone grow), so does the brain. Can we really be sure that thou…

> Actual muscles need exercise to stay in shape (let alone grow), so does the brain. Can we really be sure that thoughts, opinions, taste will still come out sharper and faster after five, ten, 20 years of using these tools almost every day? It occurred to me recently how because the LLMs have to potential to lead to intellectual/skill atrophy, they are a factor which could lead to an Idiocracy-esque [0] situation. A…

The doctor from Idiocracy: it says your shit's fucked up.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#287

Post by black3r » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC

ryan_n wrote: post #271

I agree with most of the 'llm's are bad' section. However, I find it extremely hard to believe that llm's will make peoples thoughts sharper and faster. There have already been several studies published demonstrating the obvious. Not hard to imagine that long term, the negative cognitive effects of using llm's constantly will compound and be even worse.

How LLM usage affects your thinking process entirely depends on the workflow you use with them.

I can honestly say that while using LLM my thoughts are as sharp and as fast as they were before, if not sharper and faster. But my workflow is that I watch the LLM as it rips, have verbose output turned on so I also read Claude's thinking process (and lots of interesting information is hidden there).

This helps me learn new stuff I wouldn't think of. Helps me stop Claude if he's veering off track. Makes it easier to proofread what's Claude doing and why step-by-step and easier to spot any mistakes (because they often come from wrong assumptions you wouldn't see if you didn't see the thinking process).

If you just let your agent write thousands of lines of code, reviewing them is painful. If you also run multiple agents for multiple tasks at the same time, your focus is divided, so you aren't spending all your brain power on the task at hand.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#288

Post by le-mark » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:07 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #204

ra0x3 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Devs have relatively no incentive to be more productive for their orgs, and all the incentive to be more productive on their own personal work. The AI benefit to devs is real, just not for large enterprises IMO outside of automating clerical/mundane work.

> Devs have relatively no incentive to be more productive for their orgs, and all the incentive to be more productive on their own personal work. AI definitely supercharges the side project myth, but I think we’re going to see waves of developers quitting or losing their jobs because they’re chasing dreams of running a side code project that isn’t going to turn into a business. The incentive to be more productive at…

Lazy senior vs motivated junior tension has always existed. I was one then became the other. I don’t see llm changing this dynamic!

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#289

Post by mekdoonggi » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

dominicrose wrote: post #245

mekdoonggi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. Tools are good, betting the farm on a single tool is bad. Example, cars are good. Betting the farm on cars to the detriment of bikes, buses, and trains is clearly bad. The tool of an llm is clearly handy. Betting trillions of dollars and linking the future of the nation and globe to this tool is clearly bad.

Yes instead of investing everything in AI the USA should invest in electric versions of their vehicles and in trains that can safely carry them because of their lack of range.

You're being sarcastic, but literally every other developed country invests in trains and tens of millions of people drive EV's daily with no issues.

If you want to argue that LLMs are 100x more useful than a functioning railroad system I've a bridge for you to subscribe to.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#290

Post by thaumasiotes » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

Diogenesian wrote: post #109

breadzeppelin__ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am both a career developer and experienced team manager. from first hand experience the 1.5x im getting from AI is not flowing down to my team / org because why would i output 50% more when the pay environment and leadership are already underwhelming. That additional 50% productivity goes completely to side projects built on my second computer between 9-5 tasks

Actually, the METR report speculates that some of the overreported productivity uplift comes from grabbing unnecessary low-hanging fruit, things like "oh I'll make a web dashboard to keep track of this stuff // wow that would have taken all day without Claude!" But in the olden days they would have just used a notepad. Yet psychologically they built a real thing and saved a lot of time.

> But in the olden days they would have just used a notepad. Yet psychologically they built a real thing and saved a lot of time.

There was an old Onion article about the monetary savings from buying clothes on sale as computed by (a) the women buying the clothes; and (b) their male relatives.