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Comment by NewsaHackO | Hacker News Reader

I remember there was a guy that had three(!) Claude Max subscriptions, and said he was reducing his subscriptions to one because of some superfluous problem. I'm thinking, nah, you are clearly already addicted to the LLM slot machine, and I doubt you will be able to code independently from agent use at this point. Antropic, has already won in your case.

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I don’t really understand the slot machine, addiction, dopamine meme with LLM coding. Yeah it’s nice when a tool saves you time. Are people addicted to CNCs, table saws, and 3D printers?

Yes

I don't use the agentic workflow (as I am using it for my own personal projects), but if you have ever used it, there is this rush when it solves a problem that you have been struggling with for some time, especially if it gives a solution in an approach you never even considered that it has baked in its knowledge base. It's like an "Eureka" moment. Of course, as you use it more and more, you start to get better at recognizing "Eureka" moments and hallucinations, but I can definitely see how some people keep chasing that rush/feeling you get when it uses 5 minutes to solve a problem that would have taken you ages to do (if at all).

Also, another difference is the stochastic nature of the LLMs. With table saws, CNC machines, and modern 3D printers, you kind of know what you are getting out. With LLMs, there is a whole chance aspect; sometimes, what it spits out is plainly incorrect, sometimes, it is exactly what you are thinking, but when you hit the jackpot, and get the nugget of info that elegantly solves the problem, you get the rush. Then, you start the whole bikeshedding of your prompt/models/parameters to try and hit the jackpot again.

It is the rush of "wow it solved this." I should take a break and work on something else, but in the back of my mind "what else can it solve?" Then I come up with extra work and sometimes lose at the LLM casino.

The dopamine rush to fix the issue super quickly, close the ticket, slack / work more?

Absolutely, not understanding why you even ask. Humans are creatures of habits that often dip a bit or more into outright addictions, in one of its many forms.

It's fun and you do get a dopamine rush when LLM does something cool for you. I'm certainly feeling it as a user. Perhaps you can get the same from other tools. I would vote for yes- addictive.

But it's also a tool that (can) save(s) you time.

Long term LLM use will greatly reduce your ability to work in the absense of them. Which is how addiction works.

dopameme?

I don't think there are good analogies to physical tools. It would be something like a nondeterministic version of a replicator from Star Trek which to me would feel much closer to a slot machine than a CNC mill.

I've watched my boss type out a lengthy few sentences to do a find+replace, it took him a few minutes.

This is a guy with 10+ years experience as a dev. It was a watershed moment for me, many people really have stopped thinking for themselves.

The way humans are depicted in Wall-E springs to mind as being quite prescient, it wasn't meant to be a doco

My team lead said he uses coding agents to format code.

You mean he uses agents to set up a formatter? Right? Right????

Haha! No!

I have unfortunately found myself doing stuff like this too, although maybe not as egregious.

I think part of the problem is that our brains are wired to look for the path of least resistance, and so shoving everything into an LLM prompt becomes an easy escape hatch. I'm trying to combat this myself, but finding it not trivial, to be honest. All these tools are kind of just making me lazier week over week.

There’s some kind of new failure mode here. People seem to determine a tool’s applicability for a task by whether its interface allows for their request to be entered. An open ended natural language input field lets people enter any request, regardless of the underlying tool’s suitability.

Not sure what CNCs are but table saws and 3d printers still require thinking, planning, guiding by the operator.

I know I know you're going to say (or simonw will) that effective and responsible use of LLM coding agents also requires those things, but in the real world that just isn't what's happening.

I am witnessing first hand people on my team pasting in a jira story, pressing the button and hoping for the best. And since it does sometimes do a somewhat decent job, they are addicted.

I literally heard my team lead say to someone "just use copilot so you don't have to use your brain". He's got all the tools- windsurf, antigravity, codex, copilot- just keeps firing off vibe coded pull requests.

Our manager has AI psychosis, says the teams that keep their jobs will be the ones that move fastest using AI, doesn't matter what mess the code base ends up in because those fast moving teams get to move on to other projects while the loser slow teams inherit and maintain the mess.

does your table saw build you a bookshelf by itself? and then you build other things and get confident in it and say: ok build me a house and it tries but then the house falls over?

The addiction research has terms like LDWs and near-misses. It is massively researched topic. Even cursory reading helps to understand why table saw makes really bad slot machine. Really bad 3d printer? Maaaybe. But LLMs are, either by intelligent design or coincidence of worst outcomes, excellent slot machines! They almost succeed, produce small payouts, create suspense and anticipation, and their operation is unpredictable. Table saws have a long way to go

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