Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are aggressively against LLM usage
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I came across a GH thread related to<br>chess engine development that made me think of why hobby programming<br>communities are increasingly hostile toward LLM development. While the<br>thread doesn’t give a lot of insight into answering the question, it<br>prompted me to think about it a bit. I’ve seen similar sentiments<br>expressed in other niche hobby programming communities like OSDev,<br>LangDev, TxtDev, EmuDev, RLDev, the demoscene, and code golfers. The<br>general consensus seems to be that the knowledge that these communities<br>work in is hard-fought and the use of LLMs is a form of missing the<br>point entirely. In these communities (keep in mind that there is an<br>implicit “not all…” throughout) the process of mastering a difficult<br>field itself is the product, and something that runs is generally a<br>nice-to-have.
Further, I’ve noticed that even in the instances where there was<br>earnest early engagement with LLMs in some of these niche communities,<br>the well was quickly poisoned by a combination of a lack of a deep<br>understanding by the LLM practitioners, and a vitriolic subset of those<br>communities that view the LLM enterprise as a form of cheating. Granted<br>these communities have, in general, historically been characterized by<br>feverish gatekeeping and painstakingly slow progress, so it makes sense<br>that there might be a desire to grab some easy cachet by bursting onto<br>the scene like the Kool-Aid man. OH YEAH…. OH NO!
In traditional niche dev circles, respect is earned slowly through<br>years of activity in their respective fora, sharing elegant code,<br>displays of genuine curiosity, and through sharing deep domain knowledge<br>along the way. At the end of the day, these communities don’t care if<br>your code works at all, but instead care that you know why and how it<br>works. To me, an LLM functions best as a force multiplier, not a<br>surrogate. In the hands of an expert who already understands a domain<br>deeply, it could act like a lever.1 But in these niche<br>communities, the entire exercise is in the learning. Using an LLM to<br>generate the finished piece doesn’t make us craftsmen; it just robs us<br>of the craft.
:F
This is the latest in my evolving thoughts on LLMs. Also see: LLMe and Mind the van<br>Emden Gap
That said, expertise offers no natural immunity against<br>being fooled by LLMs.↩︎
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