[weiliddat]

Not the OP, but I’ve been thinking about why LLMs feel different and I think it’s closer to the chair analogy than I initially thought. Not able to fully articulate it but here’s my try.

Conventionally programming software needed you to know your tools like language, framework, OS, etc. pretty well. There’s a divergent set of solutions dependent on your needs and the craftsmen (programmers/engineers) you went to. Many variables you needed to know to produce something useful. You need to know your raw materials, like your wood.

With LLMs it’s weirdly convergent. Now there’s so many ways to get the same thing because you just have to ask with language. It’s like mass produced furniture because it’s the most common patterns and solutions it’s been trained on. Like someone took all the wood in the world, ran it through some crazy processing, and now you are just the assembler of IKEA like pieces that mostly look the same.

There’s a lost in necessity in craft. It helps to know the underlying craft, but it’s been industrialized and most people would be happy enough with that convergent solution.