[0xmattf]

> I've identified the reason to be how intellectually unstimulating coding has become

I've felt the same, so I went low-level. Logic gates, assembly, reversing, etc. It's a whole other world. I'm not quite sure how good LLMs are in this area though. Perhaps they're really good and I'm wasting my time (again). But it's fun; it felt like learning how to program for the first time again.

[spankibalt]

> "I'm not quite sure how good LLMs are in this area though. Perhaps they're really good and I'm wasting my time (again)."

Yes, it's certainly an interesting conundrum, both on a strictly individual as well as collective level. One solution is to get one's coding as far away from the digital equivalent of plumbing as possible. In other words: One concentrates on the artistic, non-utilitarian (in the Wildean sense) stuff. A manifestation of cultural expression, a transfer of "the personal". That doesn't have to exclude the utilitarian, of course; it's offered more as a door which might neccessitate a deeper reflection before the commitment (e. g. Joanna Maciejewska's oneliner on "AI").