I don't doubt that LLMs can make programmers more productive. It's happening today, and I expect it will continue to improve, but it requires knowing what code they should generate, what the actual goals are, and how it should be tested. It can generate standard solutions to standard problems with standard bugs. That's fine they're a tool.
What the inexperienced expect them to do is read their mind, and implement what they want without testing (other than did it crash the first time I used it). Unfortunately, knowing the questions to ask is at least half of the problem, which by definition the inexperienced don't know how to do. You can already see that with vibecoding prompts to "write clear comments", "don't write bugs", and "use best practices".
So why does it lead to the enshitification of the programming experience? Because regular folks will be led to believe (Startrek movie Wargames hacker style) that this is how things are done. The will accept and expect rehashed garbage UI and implementations without security or corner case checking, because that's what they always get when they press a button and wait a minute. Now, why can't YOU stupid programmer, get the same results faster? I told you I wanted a cool game that would make me lots of money fast with no bugs!
I do have hope that some people will learn to be more clear in their descriptions of things, but guess what, english isn't really the language for that.
I'm talking about people talking in english to an AI on one screen, and compiled functioning programs appearing on the other. An "app playground" where you just tell your phone what you need an app to do, and a new bespoke app is now in your app draw.
Forget about UIs too. They won't be that important. You don't need a tree of options and menus, tool bars and buttons. You would just tell the program what you want it to do..."Don't put my signature on this email"..."wrap the text around this image properly"(cough msword cough)..."split these two parts and move the red one to the top layer"...or even "Create a button that does this and place it over there".
I'll accept that you could get an IfThisThenThat implementation that might let you get some home automation done. Of course, if you can't build an ITTT to start with, you'll have a horrible time debugging it, or even remembering to turn it off. The create a magic button thing though is exactly the terrible UI I'm talking about.
I think part of what you want is voice applications, because deleting your signature by hand is probably easier than trying to build a program that does it. Maybe the app could just search help and tell you what feature already does what you're asking for. Certainly, context sensitive voice recognition has gotten a LOT better with the latest LLMs. Not sure I'm looking forward to the guy on the train narrating to his laptop for an excel page, though.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
I don't doubt that LLMs can make programmers more productive. It's happening today, and I expect it will continue to improve, but it requires knowing what code they should generate, what the actual goals are, and how it should be tested. It can generate standard solutions to standard problems with standard bugs. That's fine they're a tool.
What the inexperienced expect them to do is read their mind, and implement what they want without testing (other than did it crash the first time I used it). Unfortunately, knowing the questions to ask is at least half of the problem, which by definition the inexperienced don't know how to do. You can already see that with vibecoding prompts to "write clear comments", "don't write bugs", and "use best practices".
So why does it lead to the enshitification of the programming experience? Because regular folks will be led to believe (Startrek movie Wargames hacker style) that this is how things are done. The will accept and expect rehashed garbage UI and implementations without security or corner case checking, because that's what they always get when they press a button and wait a minute. Now, why can't YOU stupid programmer, get the same results faster? I told you I wanted a cool game that would make me lots of money fast with no bugs!
I do have hope that some people will learn to be more clear in their descriptions of things, but guess what, english isn't really the language for that.