[dxuh]

I am sort of questioning my use of LLMs again after, first reluctantly, starting to use them multiple times a day. This story seems like it was intended to be an allegory for LLM-use though I know it couldn't have been.

[ThrowawayR2]

It's an allegory about trusting "best practices", standardized bodies of knowledge¹, and "that's the way it's always been done". Not that those things necessarily don't work, they do in the story as well as in real life, but they need to adapt to change and the story illustrates what happens when they harden from best practice into unquestioned dogma.

¹ There's even a BoK for software developers, the SWEBOK, but I've never met anybody who's read it.

[sdwr]

I think it's more about social stratification than bodies of knowledge. The knowledge is treated as a class signifier, especially by the protanogist. In the bit with the friend, the new training he didn't have was practically useful, but, more than that, it sharpened the gap between the "haves" (went to a good school) and "have-nots".

[marcosdumay]

It's also about hyperspecialization. A concept that was beginning to be noticed at the time.

[doxeddaily]

Why could it not have been? LLM is just a reasoning machine something Asimov spent a lot of time thinking about.

[markus_zhang]

I think using LLM or even vibe coding is fine for things you are not absolutely interested in but have to do it anyway.