Post #361784

2026-02-21 06:07 UTC

@ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club For the record, I work at a software company that employs ~10k developers. Before LLMs, I'd encounter such engineers a couple of times a month, but I interact with a lot of engineers, specifically the ones that need help or are new at the company or industry at large, so it's a selected sample. Even the most inexperienced ones are willing and able to learn with some guidance. After LLMs, there's been a significant uptick, and these new ones are grossly incompetent, incurious, impatient, and behave like addicts if their supply of tokens is at all interrupted. If they run out of prompt credits, its an emergency because they claim they can't do any work at all. They can't even explain the architecture of what they are making anymore, and can't even file tickets or send emails without an LLM writing it for them, and they certainly lack in any kind of reading comprehension. It's bleak and depressing, and makes me want to quit the industry altogether.

Replies (9)

@hollowone@mas.erb.pw 2026-02-22 17:28

@drikanis@mstdn.ca @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club the first problem I see is that this tool should not be given to developers who love developing, that’s demolishing them and brings no good karma. But if llm is given to architects who know how to use it, then eventually they discover that they don’t need developers as with good context/skills management in the IDE/codebase connected LMM, the dev job is done by AI and what in the past required team leader and bunch of devs + qa now can be done by just a team leader, much faster. At least in the early stage of the project Lots of time saved on discussions and sharing clarity of a vision that AI consumes much better in no time. but Lead must be good and consequent at maintaining the AI-driven hygiene.. of the project files. When that is done then outcomes are good and all the time saved is about inventing new components, organizing docs, researching ideas and converting them to proposals. The last then are managed by AI to deliver. This way all the dumb who decided to outsource thinking are out business anyway, so why to bother them eliminating themselves now by their own laziness? Those who think are rather busy with AI in more constructive way. But I agree on one thing, transformation of the skills and processes is an overkill and dopamine infected poison to many who struggle today.

Open ##365182
@alper@rls.social 2026-02-22 11:47

@drikanis@mstdn.ca @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club That’s just people? LLMs have allowed me, somebody without much depth in devops/AWS, to be able to onboard myself onto any task my team is going. You can use these things constructively but that doesn’t grant immediate slot machine rewards.

Open ##1123744
@jablkoziemne@101010.pl 2026-02-21 07:59

@drikanis @ludicity "they claim they can't do any work at all." Saying something like I can't do this terrifies me, as it says Im incompetent and should not be filling that position. Besides that this doesn't provide any information for others to give me help which I desperately need. That's why I try to say what I want to acomplish, what I hove done, and what's the issue, and thanks to that half the time I get new ideas to check and maybe even I get to solve my problem.

Open ##1375573
@javerous@social.sourcemac.com 2026-02-21 10:13

@drikanis @ludicity Similar experience here. More and more people cannot function without an LLM prompt ready to answer to them, they totally lost any autonomy. If you ask anything to them, they will basically give you the output of their LLM, instead of formulating an answer by themselves, even when they know the answer. It’s pure cocaine.

Open ##1375578
@sheogorath@microblog.shivering-isles.com 2026-02-21 10:30

@drikanis @ludicity it's a good time to become a carpenter. Being able to build a house from scratch seems to become more relevant these days.

Open ##1375606
@wifwolf@packmates.org 2026-02-21 17:45

@drikanis @ludicity Tangential, I have noticed a trend with customer emails (wide spread, many multiples companies) that makes me believe more people are using LLMs to write reply emails & not reading at all. there's a 'jje ne sais quoi' to not just them not answering questions but *how* they're not answering questions. I can't put my finger on it, but it's tripping my spidy-sense / pattern recognition.

Open ##1375607
@adingbatponder@fosstodon.org 2026-02-21 21:41

@drikanis @ludicity Very stressful situation, sorry to hear that. I guess the dynamics of cooperation has been broken suddenly.

Open ##1375611
@Patrickoldhiker@ohai.social 2026-02-22 09:22

@drikanis @ludicity It's notable that, if these useless meat sacks are in the US, someone likely either borrowed $250K or spent their own money for them to cheat their way to a degree using AI. Some days, I'm comforted by the fact that I'm old.

Open ##1375612
@dan@mastodon.durrans.com 2026-02-22 09:53

@drikanis @ludicity The writing was on the wall when front end developers stopped being able to do anything if there wasn't already a component in a library somewhere they could import. "Can we have that as a drop down list with an icon next to each item?”, I say. "No”, they say, “I don't think our framework has that”

Open ##1375620