the LLM companies have provided me with a button that i can just press to get instant results. now when i can just press a button and get similar results, why would i spend hours writing code by hand just because it gives me “joy”, because i became a software engineer because i was “passionate”, and because engineering a complex system truly releases dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins - basically all the happy hormones.

don’t get me wrong, i am not a pessimist. it is fascinating watching these LLMs complete tasks that used to take humans weeks, in minutes.

but if i don’t use these LLMs, i get left behind. if i use them, my passion for building software dies.

the power i used to feel because of my ability to conjure something out of thin air is gone. i am now at the mercy of these LLM companies.

any responsible developer would review their code before it goes to production. but i wanna be the author, not the proofreader. i don’t wanna sit for hours and read thousands of lines of slop that this LLM spat out. i wanna be the one writing it.

LLMs generate really large amounts of code really fast. i, as a human, reading it line by line and trying to understand all the code it wrote before reviewing it, simply cannot match that speed.

what does it even mean to be an engineer now? i can write javascript at the speed of 10,000 lines of code an hour using a statistical model. what value am i adding as an engineer there?

the software i built used to be a very intimate thing. it was artisanal. handcrafted. i would write each line, each character, each semicolon by hand.

now i don’t even know what my role is in the entire software building process. the software i create now, i have zero emotional attachment to. i have no feelings towards it. i don’t feel like i am its creator. the commit just happens to be tagged against my git username. i feel like i didn’t earn it because i didn’t suffer for it.

as a craftsman, as a developer, my work used to change me because i would struggle and suffer for it. i would go to bed having no idea how i would solve the problem, and then wake up the next day to try out a solution. sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn’t. but i would continue struggling nevertheless.

and when i would finally stumble upon a solution that works, i would have a rush so high that no drug can match.

that rush is now completely gone.

this magic LLM button now directly gives me the solution that works. i don’t go on a journey to discover the solution anymore. and thus, i don’t feel any emotional bond to the output of my work anymore.

i would have loved to work with a like-minded superhuman who shares the same love and passion as me for the art of building software. but not this soulless LLM.

everyone is in this AI psychosis and we don’t even realise it.

these LLMs are a drug. once you do it, you wanna keep doing it all the time, even if it kills your passion. the only way to get my sense of humanity back is to go cold turkey. completely stop using them to code. but let’s be honest, none of us can afford to do that.

if you make the devil’s deal, the LLM could do all your work at 100x your speed. and i accepted the deal because the bargain was so damn good. i have now changed myself to make that deal acceptable. and i don’t feel like i will ever go back, because i don’t want to be left behind.

but maybe the answer is not to run away from the deal.

maybe the only way to feel that passion again is to pick problems that are even harder. problems that push me to my absolute limits. problems that even the LLM would struggle to solve.

maybe that is the new bar.

and maybe only then will the struggle come back. the late nights, the uncertainty, the slow discovery of a solution that did not exist before.

maybe that is where the passion still lives. it’s just buried under the weight of a button.