In the same spirit, I present a tongue-in-cheek version of the 5 stages of grief for LLM advocates, summarized from what I've seen in HN posts and blog submissions like this one:
- Denial - "It's not possible for there be developers that are don't get value from LLMs because that would suggest they are do more complex work that LLMs aren't able to handle well or are plainly more capable than me and I cannot imagine that."
- Anger - (We are here.) "These LLM denialists are just luddites, gatekeepers, dinosaurs, obsolete 'artisans', etc. They're stuck in the past and are going to lose their jobs/careers and we'll be shaking our head at their foolishness. Well, we did helpfully try to warn them."
- Bargaining - "You all must accept LLMs. There's too much momentum behind them and too much money invested for them to fail. And besides I've become dependent on them to remain competitive in my profession. We need a paycheck to survive too!"
-Depression - "Is everything most developers do so routine and formulaic that an LLM can barf out most of it cheaper? Is frontend and backend really so same-y underneath even though the frameworks and fads churn like a milkshake in a blender. Should the fact that I never used my CS degree warned me that what I did was rote work?" This is what the author alludes to when mentioning doing "digital plumbing".
- Acceptance - "Okay, I'm merely an LLM operator now, not a software engineer. I regretfully accept that but I'm still good at what I do and produce good value. I don't deserve to be looked down on in the way SWEs look down on QA because I'm still part of the team."
ThrowawayR2•1h ago
- Denial - "It's not possible for there be developers that are don't get value from LLMs because that would suggest they are do more complex work that LLMs aren't able to handle well or are plainly more capable than me and I cannot imagine that."
- Anger - (We are here.) "These LLM denialists are just luddites, gatekeepers, dinosaurs, obsolete 'artisans', etc. They're stuck in the past and are going to lose their jobs/careers and we'll be shaking our head at their foolishness. Well, we did helpfully try to warn them."
- Bargaining - "You all must accept LLMs. There's too much momentum behind them and too much money invested for them to fail. And besides I've become dependent on them to remain competitive in my profession. We need a paycheck to survive too!"
-Depression - "Is everything most developers do so routine and formulaic that an LLM can barf out most of it cheaper? Is frontend and backend really so same-y underneath even though the frameworks and fads churn like a milkshake in a blender. Should the fact that I never used my CS degree warned me that what I did was rote work?" This is what the author alludes to when mentioning doing "digital plumbing".
- Acceptance - "Okay, I'm merely an LLM operator now, not a software engineer. I regretfully accept that but I'm still good at what I do and produce good value. I don't deserve to be looked down on in the way SWEs look down on QA because I'm still part of the team."