I think I can finally put words around what truly bothers me about the "AI changes everything" meme, as far as programming goes:
Programming is fundamentally hard for our brains, because it requires fractal perfection.
(By fractal perfection I mean that each code line must be perfect, but so must the overall architecture and all intermediate levels.)
They way your brain gets better at that is training by doing.
The oft quoted 10k hours is probably about right, also for programming.
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But if you use a LLM to write your code, and only look at it, when it doesn't do what you want, you are not training to become a better programmer, you are training to become a better "incoming code quality inspector".
But there is no training-path from incoming code quality inspector to good programmer, because you are (deliberately) not investing the 10k hours.
At the core it comes down to passive vs. active vocabulary: You only grow your active vocabulary by expressing yourself.
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I'm not against LLMs.
But we need to recognize that if the pretend-competence they enable, leak into spaces where actual competence is required, bad things happen to innocent people.
We do not allow people with pretend-competence to perform brain-surgery, design high-rise buildings or fly airplanes, but we are OK with them staging Shakespeare.
The traditional solution to such line-drawing is licensing, responsibility & mandatory insurance.
Poul-Henning Kamp
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