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Comment by Jemaclus | Hacker News Reader

It's like any other tool. Use it when you need it.

We don't insist that HVAC installers use hand-powered drills to "feel closer to the work," but we also don't insist that they use battery-powered drills and impact drivers on every single task.

We don't insist that a chef use a Vitamix blender to chop a single onion when a couple seconds with a sharp knife will do, but we certainly wouldn't only use a sharp knife to create a salsa.

We don't insist that a carpenter use only hand-saws to build a house, but we also don't insist that they use a chainsaw to make a chair.

We don't insist that an accountant write out taxes by hand, but we also don't insist that they use a calculator to determine how old you are from your birthdate.

You use the power tools when appropriate, and you use more delicate, surgical tools when appropriate. It's not any more difficult than that.

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The problem with this analogy is an LLM isn't very much like a "tool" at all.

- In cases of practical relevance, you pay a recurring fee to keep using it - not very tool-like.

- Rather than doing a predictable action in response to user inputs, you give it imprecise instructions and it does something unpredictable but vaguely correct in response, which then must be thoroughly inspected.

- In cases of practical relevance, its actual operation (not just design) is entirely handled by a third party, not by the user.

These things describe a subcontractor, not a tool. We don't insist that a chef at a restaurant use this tool or that tool, but if the restaurant was actually just outsourcing all its cooking to some other company...yeah, that would absolutely factor into my decision to go there or not.

Sure. But this is a little pedantic, no?

Let's go with your analogy: you would hire contractors to build a house, but not to put an IKEA bookshelf together. You would hire a professional chef to cook a five course meal, but not to heat up pop tarts. You would hire a surgeon to operate on your brain, but not to prescribe advil.

The point is that it's one of many things (tools, contractors, whatever) in your arsenal, and you use whichever one you need. You don't automatically reach for the surgeon or the chef or the contractor.

But the thing is, in this analogy, we are the chef, surgeon, or builder. We're the ones other people look for when they can't do the thing by themselves (in this case, writing software).

Neither my analogy or yours is exact, but it's really worth thinking about.

Right. But OP's question isn't "do you need a chef?" the question OP posed is more akin to "why should chefs use knives when they have blenders?" or "why should I build an IKEA bookshelf myself when I can hire a contractor to build a house?"

Because they're two different tools and situations.

You may be right but it seems like a different type of tool when it does the thinking for you. I feel like your analogy is closer to a good autocomplete rather than an agentic LLM loop. Agents feel like a genuinely different technology.

Maybe it’s more like an HVAC installer has a tool which tells them where to position the furnace. After many years, will they forget why the furnace should go there? Or maybe it’s like the HVAC installer has a tool which auto attaches the pipes. Hopefully it attached cold to cold and hot to hot, but the HVAC installer hasn’t had to do this in a while so they kind of forgot how to do it manually, and so will just trust the tool.

Imagine a carpenter needed to be proficient in hand-saws to use their chainsaw well, and using their chainsaw required knowing details about the wood they were working with, in only the way using a hand-saw gave.

Makes it a littttttle more complicated.

Conversely, imagine only requiring carpenters to know how to use a chainsaw.

I really like your analogy as-is, but LLMs aren't reliable power tools. Asking for external help requires good communication and can be overkill for small tasks.

Hiring a team of subcontractors carries risks unless you babysit the whole project.

I mean, it's the same idea, no? You hire contractors to build your house, but not to put together an IKEA bookshelf.

...and it's fine to not use the loud, vibrating power saw and instead take some extra time to use a handsaw, and thus get more practiced at it.

It's fine to hire movers, but sometimes they end up damaging stuff. My solution is have a lot less stuff, and move it myself.

I increasingly have more respect for the Amish community one of my relatives lives near, at least in terms of their considered, intentional limits set on resource use. I don't agree with all their choices, and some seem arbitrary, but I respect their autonomy to choose.

I choose to move around the world primarily under my own power or augmented by a battery (supplies 2/3 of the Wattage I need to make my cargo bicycle move); harm reduction in the face of fossil-fuel addiction. I choose not to use generative AI because I'd rather human do more work for themselves instead of selling short future humans with profligate resource consumption.

It's fine to strive for things, but the most important thing in my life is my relationships with other humans. If I'm a person who can't walk, and am in physical therapy towards being able to walk, it's fine to keep working at it, and it's fine to never be able to walk; what matters is how I get on with my mates, and spending massive amounts of electricity on data centers is arguably harmful to the health of interpersonal relationships.

Yes, exactly.

This is a great frame. Can I ask (and I mean this with good faith, because I've had this problem for the longest time now) how do you deal with employers or corporations who demand the absolute maximum output every second of every day, forcing you to use the proverbial loud, vibrating power saw to the point that you feel terrified to even look at the handsaw?

The question is what your tolerance to this kind of thing is. If the job is fundamentally changing underneath you, then you need to ask yourself if this is still a job you want to keep. If the answer is no, then you find another one. If you think you can still do it the way your employer is demanding, then stick around.

The sad truth is that the job is changing, and that means we need to change, too. That _doesn't_ mean we need the power saw 100% of the time, but it does mean we need to be very very proficient at it or we'll be left behind.

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