>any more than we have to look at the machine language emitted by a C compiler.
Some developers do actually look at the output of C compilers, and some of them even spend a lot of time criticizing that output by a specific compiler (even writing long blog posts about it). The C language has an ISO specification, and if a compiler does not conform to that specification, it is considered a bug in that compiler.
You can even go to godbolt.org / compilerexplorer.org and see the output generated for different targets by different compilers for different languages. It is a popular tool, also for language development.
I do not know what prompt engineering will look like in the future, but without AGI, I remain skeptical about verification of different kinds of code not being required in at least a sizable proportion of cases. That does not exclude usefulness of course: for instance, if you have a case where verification is not needed; or verification in a specific case can be done efficiently and robustly by a relevant expert; or some smart method for verification in some cases, like a case where a few primitive tests are sufficient.
But I have no experience with LLMs or prompt engineering.
I do, however, sympathize with not wanting to deal with paying programmers. Most are likely nice, but for instance a few may be costly, or less than honest, or less than competent, etc. But while I think it is fine to explore LLMs and invest a lot into seeing what might come of them, I would not personally bet everything on them, neither in the short term nor the long term.
May I ask what your professional background and experience is?
Some developers do actually look at the output of C compilers, and some of them even spend a lot of time criticizing that output by a specific compiler (even writing long blog posts about it). The C language has an ISO specification, and if a compiler does not conform to that specification, it is considered a bug in that compiler.
Those programmers don't get much done compared to programmers who understand their tools and use them effectively. Spending a lot of time looking at assembly code is a career-limiting habit, as well as a boring one.
I do not know what prompt engineering will look like in the future, but without AGI, I remain skeptical about verification of different kinds of code not being required in at least a sizable proportion of cases. That does not exclude usefulness of course: for instance, if you have a case where verification is not needed; or verification in a specific case can be done efficiently and robustly by a relevant expert; or some smart method for verification in some cases, like a case where a few primitive tests are sufficient.
Determinism and verifiability is something we'll have to leave behind pretty soon. It's already impossible for most programmers to comprehend (or even access) all of the code they deal with, just due to the sheer size and scope of modern systems and applications, much less exercise and validate all possible interactions. A lot of navel-gazing about fault-tolerant computing is about to become more than just philosophical in nature, and about to become relevant to more than hardware architects.
In any event, regardless of your and my opinions of how things ought to be, most working programmers never encounter compiler output unless they accidentally open the assembly window in their debugger. Then their first reaction is "WTF, how do I get out of this?" We can laugh at those programmers now, but we'll all end up in that boat before long. The most popular high-level languages in 2040 will be English and Mandarin.
May I ask what your professional background and experience is?
Probably ~30 kloc of C/C++ per year since 1991 or thereabouts. Possibly some of it running on your machine now (almost certainly true in the early 2000s but not so much lately.)
Probably 10 kloc of x86 and 6502 assembly code per year in the ten years prior to that.
But I have no experience with LLMs or prompt engineering.
May I ask why not? You and the other users who voted my post down to goatse.cx territory seem to have strong opinions on the subject of how software development will (or at least should) work going forward.