Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't think you've used it. I used it intensely and mostly autonomously (with clear instructions, including how to measure good output) almost non-stop over the holidays. Its a new abstraction for programming -- it doesn't replace software developers, it gives them a more natural way to describe what they want.

> none of this is going to improve people's lives.

I have some old borderline senile relatives writting apps (asking LLMs to write for it them) for their own personal use. Stuff they surely haven't done on their own (or had the energy to do). Their extent of programming background - shitty VBScript macros for excel.

It also helps people to pick up programming and helps with the initial push of getting started. Getting over the initial hump, getting something on the screen so to speak.

Most things people want from their computers are simple shit that LLMs usually manage quite well.

Good question whether or not this (outsourcing their thinking) actually just accelerates their senility or not.

As someone who likes to solve hard or interesting technical problems, I've long before LLMs often been disappointed that most of the time what people want from programmers is simple stupid shit (ie. stuff i dont find interesting to work on).

> Re-building things that most probably already exist, simply with your own little special flavour?

That describes half of the current unicorn startups nowadays.

This is a natural response to software enshittification. You can hardly find an iOS app that is not plagued by ads, subscriptions, or hostile data collection. Now you can have your own small utilities that can work for you. This sort of personal software might be very valuable in the world where you are expected to pay 5$ to click any button.

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