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The ability to generate novel ideas.

What's your definition of a novel idea? How do you measure that?

I've had a 15 year+ successful career as a SWE so far. I don't think I've had a single idea so novel that today's LLM could not have come up with it.

I've had plenty. Independent discovery is a real thing, especially with juniors.

Well that's not true - see the Terry Tao article using AlphaEvolve to discover new proofs.

Additionally, "novel ideas" isn't something that is included in something that smart people do so why would it be a requirement for AI.

How many people generate novel ideas? When I look around at work, most people basically operate like an LLM. They see what’s being done by others and emulate it.

In my experience, discernment and good judgment. The "generating ideas" capabilities is good. The text summarization capabilities are great. However when it comes to making reasoned choices, it seems like it's losing all abilities, and even worse it will sound grossly overconfident or sycophantic or both.

The LLM is not a person.

it's in the eye of the beholder