[dontreact]

I think that “I’m not technical” is often an excuse for throwing work at other people and frankly can be a form of learned helplessness. Nowadays, there is less and less reason to ask other people to write one off scripts/queries, you can ask AI for help and learn how to do that.

Since this is HN some disclaimers -no that’s not always what’s happening, when “not technical” is thrown around -no it’s not always appropriate to use AI instead of asking an expert

[bluGill]

It may be a good thing to throw scripts off to someone else. Division of labor is a good thing. You cannot possibly learn everything to a good (not even high) standard. Even if you could, no lawyer would have themselves as a client - when a lawyer needs legal advice they go to a different lawyer because they want that different perspective: this is often a good perspective for other subjects as well.

The question is what you will/should learn for your limited time alive. Society needs well educated (I include things "street smarts" and apprenticeship in educated here) people in many different subjects. Some subjects are important enough everyone needs to learn them (reading, writing, arithmetic). Some subjects are nearly useless but fun (tinplate film photography) and so worth knowing.

Things like basic computer skills are raising to the level where the majority of people today need them. However I'm not sure that scripting is itself quite at that level. (though it is important enough that a significant minority should have them)

[dontreact]

Looks like I needed another disclaimer:

I’m talking about a general trend I see in use of this term, not that it’s always a bad thing to say “I’m not technical so someone else should write the script”

I agree with everything you said!

Both things are happening in the world: people using this terminology to throw work at others needlessly, and people doing good division of labor.