alt Hacker News“AI Skills” are worthless in 2026
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On what basis are you telling this? I think, it's more "outdated" skills that are worthless, but the interval of time we have to refresh those is getting ridiculously fast....
> But a skill that can be picked up in a few weeks, and will be obsolete in a few months, has no value outside the moment.
This does not describe the general skill of effective communication, which is a prerequisite to writing a prompt that actually describes what you have in mind. Nor does it describe the general skill of, well, having something coherent and sensible in mind.
If anything, we are getting worse at acquiring these skills, thanks to an overreliance on AI. Everything turns to slop, if we let it.
> a skill that can be picked up in a few weeks, and will be obsolete in a few months
What skills are being referred to?
What's an example of such a skill that "can be picked up in a few weeks"?
The only "AI" example they seem to give is:
> in five years, I’m sure there will be old heads doggedly adding 'you are an experienced software developer, make no mistakes'
1. I don't think "make no mistakes" was ever considered a real AI skill - it was popularized as meme to mock those who did not know much about AI?
2. In years things may change, but Googling seems to indicate that mentioning a role in a prompt can be helpful as it quickly sets the stage for the AI to understand the persona/purpose/context/scope/desired response format for the rest of the prompt. On the other hand, I read that Anthropic found personas didn't boost result quality. But I'm still not sure it fits the article's core claim of "a skill that can be picked up in a few weeks, and will be obsolete in a few months". (Separately, even if not beneficial, that's also still not the same as "harmful" especially considering the few tokens it uses.)
On the other hand, Anthropic and OAI both still have live docs using the "You are a __" format:
https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt...
https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/prompt-enginee...
Anthropic and OAI both have prompt guidance, including even version-specific guidance. I guess that might closest fit the article's definition, but personally I haven't heard about anyone taking "weeks" to learn it as a "skill", or at the very least I think most people know (since it's version specific) that it's not long-term.
Personally I frequently use different open models so it makes less sense for me, but I do sometimes ask LLMs for prompt feedback, especially for items I reuse frequently over months or more.
The criticism of the "prompt engineer" craze years ago would be valid, but I don't think criticizing that is relevant in 2026.
https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt...
"Getting it right is more valuable than getting in first" is what I will agree with. I feel what the author is trying to say. The AI field is moving too fast. One day it is prompt engineering. Then it's RAG, MCPs, Loop engineering, and now harness engineering. But rather than fearing that these are becoming obsolete, I feel there is an opportunity to participate by hopping on and sprinting ahead.