It's a good analogy that's probably occurred independently to a lot of us. Here's my version from a private email a few weeks ago:
> [...] I don't like the "great equalizer" effect. [...] Like a kung-fu expert who wandered into a wild-west saloon of drunks all packing six-shooters. (I'm still working on this metaphor.)
Might as well share the entire off-the-cuff email, replying to a great software engineer friend who recently went academic, when they asked what I thought about AI development.
> "You're absolutely right," as the chatbots say.
> I think Claude Code (which I think is currently regarded as the best brand for software development) is for banging out *something* when you don't care so much about the quality. Like most applications of generative AI (homework cheating, customer service, usual corporate ticket-closing).
> And I'm definitely not thinking through the problem very well. The first time I noticed this was on UI design, where Claude would emit a generic *something*, and then the mode is to make incremental tweaks, rather than going through the mental exercises and holistic thinking.
> So sometimes I'm thinking like a non-technical manager, giving initial spec, and then iterating on things I notice -- not thinking like a designer, architect, or engineer.
> Or, like a senior engineer who has to mentor a hyperactive intern who bullshits and plagiarizes like crazy, and makes empty apologies like a sociopath when caught, but is the CEO's nephew, so you can't just fire and blacklist them. You just have to get *something* out of them.
> I can do much better design and better implementation myself, but it's good enough. And it's better than at least half the industry software engineers, so a lot of people who never cared much nor got very good, are in trouble. And management is often a poor judge of skill, if they even care.
> Besides the questions of its performance and utility, and all the ethics questions, I don't like the "great equalizer" effect. Now a lot more people can do (or seem to do) many of things I can do. And I'm having a lot of trouble job-hunting, and companies mostly want people to be using or building AI. Hence learning the robo-plagiarism tools. Like a kung-fu expert who wandered into a wild-west saloon of drunks all packing six-shooters. (I'm still working on this metaphor.)
That conversation might've started when I showed friend my new gen-AI portfolio site, so the context would be realist assessment and handling it, spoken to someone who already knows I'm an enthusiastic hardcore engineer.