softirq

While originally I was an LLM skeptic, I was also eager to gain insight into it’s true capabilities, and recently I’ve reached the tipping point of existantial dread - I no longer feel any joy while coding. I’m no longer an artisan enjoying the journey of creating, I’m now truly a cog designed to review factory output until even that role is no longer required.

My biggest feeling right now is an immense sense of loss. My belief was that the purpose of one’s life is found through acts of creation. The painter finds joy in painting, and the result is valued because of the effort involved. This feels like an attack on all intellectual pursuits, including the arts, but it’s especially hard considering the technology seems to have the most value at replacing its creators.

Where do we go from here? So many of my friends have talked about switching fields, as we watch this miracle field edge towards becoming a facsimile of itself. I am personally left with many questions about my own future.

I have been a passionate programmer from high school to my mid-thirties and for the first time in my career I find myself pessimistic about the future of our field to the point that I have lost my spark.

I have always loved correctness, cleanliness, and understanding how things work. Companies are racing to integrate tools that remove all of those attributes from my job. LLMs constantly spit out false information, poorly written and buggy code, and their inner workings are a black box of statistical knobs. They are a tool that encourages bloat and turns the job of the software engineer into a code checker watching over the shoulder of an intern.

I’ve realized the age of discrete, deterministic computing is coming to a close. Due to the tantalizing notion that programming can be commoditized and outsources to a machine, I know corporations will continue to pursue this avenue in full force. It’s put me into a real depression, and I wonder if I’m the only one.