It's not a joke, but I think it's an example of the same thing we're seeing with folks who think they're talking to god when they talk to ChatGPT, or those who spiral and in some cases, sadly take their own life.

These chatbots create an echo chamber unlike that which we've ever had to deal with before. If we thought social media was bad, this is way worse.

I think Gastown and Beads are examples of this applied to software engineering. Good software is built with input from others. I've seen many junior engineers go off and spend weeks building the wrong thing, and it's a mess, but we learn to get input, we learn to have our ideas critiqued.

LLMs give us the illusion of pair programming, of working with a team, but they're not. LLMs vastly accelerate the rate at which you can spiral spiral down the wrong path, or down a path that doesn't even make sense. Gastown and Beads are that. They're fever dreams. They work, somewhat, but even just a little bit of oversight, critique, input from others, would have made them far better.