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Comment by mkozlows | Hacker News Reader

Your PM can write the ticket, and your QA can test the output.

I think we would, at some point realize that the roles of PM and QA are best done by an LLM, while coding is left to humans.

So an 180 from the current coding-automation frenzy..

>> How are you going to prompt the LLM or validate its output if you don't understand the requirements?

> Your PM can write the ticket, and your QA can test the output.

If your PM can write the ticket and your QA can test the output, why not cut out the middleman by having the PM write the coding agent prompt(s)?

And if your PM can write the coding agent prompt(s), why not cut out the QA group by having the PM write the verification prompt(s)?

And if your PM can write those prompts, why not cut out the PM and have your CSRs write the feature request/verification prompts?

And if your CSRs can write the feature request/verification prompts, why not cut them out and have the organization's customers write the feature request along with acceptance prompts?

And if customers can write those prompts, why would they pay you?

Because customers have better things to do.

Do they though? I assume they’re also getting replaced by LLM in this hypothetical.

Indeed they would, as the decision chain I posited is a form of "argumentum ad absurdum"[0].

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

And finally: Why bother making new software at all when AI can just do the thing you wanted done, directly?

> And finally: Why bother making new software at all when AI can just do the thing you wanted done, directly?

In many ways, the "save costs by LLM-ing everything" mindset is the same logical fallacy companies fell into in the 90's/00's with regard to outsourcing. The end-state was rationalizing outsourcing call centers, then production system support, then software development, then project management, then...

Once the outsourcing raptor came for the accountants (who wrote the cheques) and remaining management (who cashed quarterly bonus cheques), outsourcing became "less appealing."

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