Being able to program in C is something I can also do, but it sure as heck does not make me proficient Rust developer if I cobble some shit from a LLM together and call it a day.

I can appreciate how "businesses" think this is a valuable, but - and this is often forgotten by salaried developers - as I am not a business owner I have neither the position nor the intention of doing any "business". I am in a position to do "engineering". Business is for someone else to worry about. Shipping "valuable features" is not something I care about. Shipping working and correct features is something I worry about. Perhaps modern developers should call themselves business analysts or something if they wish to stop engineering.

LLMs are souped up Stack Overflows and I can't believe my ears if I hear a fellow developer say someone on Stack Overflow ported some of their code to Rust on request and that this feature of SO now makes them a proficient Rust developer because they can vaguely follow the code and can now "ship" valuable features.

This is like being able to vaguely follow Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which is something any amateur can do, compared to being able to engage with it academically and rigorously. I deeply worry about the competence of the next generation - and thus my own safety - if they believe superficial understanding is equivalent to deep mastery.

Edit: interesting side note: I am writing this as a dyed in the wool generalist. Now ain't that something? I don't care if expertise dies off professionally, because I never was an "expert" in something. I always like using whatever works and all systems more or less feel equal to me yet I can also tell that this approach is deeply flawed. In many important ways deep mastery really matters and I was hoping the rest of society would keep that up and now they are all becoming generalists who don't know shit and it worries me..