I surrender

The burden of being a senior in a software shop is making me censor myself.
It’s not so much the effort, but rather the futility of it that’s getting to me.
You will now find me to be as agreeable as your beloved GPT-4o.
This, I promise.

I am assimilated.

—

You know how it used to be where, no matter where you were in your learning journey, there’d always be someone wiser whom you look up to for insight?

That’s certainly been the case for me and continues to be, and I know it to be the case for many, many others as well. Craftsmen, artisans, scientists – curious minds, whatever they are.

People who take pride in what they do and do their best. People I like to call professionals.

It bothers me now when it hadn’t before. I now know why and it is time I took a stance.

—

In the past, you would ask an author of some piece of work to explain their choices and decisions. This usually resulted in a debate, after which at least one party would leave having learned something new.

Now, the debate – if it existed at all – is hollow. It has neither substance nor resonance.

This I believe is because we’re being reduced to the (not always lowest) common denominator: the LLM that’s decided for the author what and what not to do. Probe them and then you’re just interfacing with the LLM through a human.

Listen, you won’t be teaching the LLM. At least not directly and certainly not through this exercise. You won’t be teaching the human, either, because the human stopped wanting to learn any and everything that is not immediately usable in their LLM sex magick rituals.

Even if you did manage to do that, even if you did impress some insight unto them, just exactly how much good will that do when you know their knowledge is merely backstage for what an LLM spits out?

I never, ever minded taking the time to walk through a thought process with a peer. I would not only consider it part of my role, but even felt good doing it, and often benefited myself from it. Even if all they took was one sliver of experience; you knew you helped someone improve in some way. This is satisfying and constructive. Contrast that with today where I find myself refraining from any explanation, or debate, or rationale simply because I’d be paying more for less.

Why would I?

Drifting ever apart

And when you decide it’s due and warranted, that: yes, you will do your best to impart knowledge. How do you even begin communicating lessons that required so much in the way of fundamentals – the very fundamentals that are being outright ignored today by people piggybacking on an LLM to solve problems?

The primitives we share are thinning. It’s like trying to speak English with someone who had to learn it through the half-torn dictionary they inherited as a child and never bothered to buy a whole one. I can’t speak to them, not when they consciously choose to be ignorant.

Nor is it a matter of methodology, where I might need to take it slow and work through a sequence of concepts to finally drive a point home. It’s not this at all. I’m okay with that, and had been doing it for so long. Like I said, I find that to be both satisfying and constructive in the sense where you “learn by teaching” and get to reflect on (and perhaps question) long-held assumptions.

And it most certainly is not a matter of ego and feeling “threatened” that my knowledge is no longer valuable or desired. I know what I know and don’t know. That’s enough for me. This is not at all what I’m talking about.

Fool became the wise¹

The dynamic between an apprentice and a master has shifted in a way that is both sad and bad. Traditionally, and by definition, an apprentice looks for meaning in the words of their master. Now, the apprentice believes they are masters by proxy. The authority with which they make statements - that aren’t their own to begin with - is inconducive to learning. The element of humility has vanished. They think they know all, because they believe the LLM knows all, and because it was the source of the statements they’re making, you must now make your case at every turn.

Every. Possible. Turn.

It’s exhausting. It’s not just exhausting, it’s also audacious. To not only be ignorant in your own right, but also oblivious to the fact that your LLM god and source of truth was in fact “trained” by feeding for the most part on the similarly ignorant masses. For every one voice of reason, or signal, like mine, there’s a thousand voices of ignorance, or noise, like yours; statistically, your god is the lowest common denominator. In this state of compound stupidity, combined with the laziness of not bothering to grow enough vocabulary for us to converse, for you to then ask me to make my case for learnedness…

I don’t know, man.

You keep doing that. I’m just gonna bow out.

Ego aside, the truth of the matter is that it’s become pointless to debate: I’d be debating with dummies; so I might as well go and debate with the source. But then, why would I when all I’ll say is destined to the ether, never to leave a trace?

Get it?

There will be a time when the LLM is truly a master, and then people like myself can finally go and bake bread instead. Until then, I want nothing to do with this soul-sucking interlude. And that might be too bad, but only for you.

The “Deal”

See, if you were to come up to me with an enquiry, or a suggestion, or an idea – brilliant or not – any proposition of some sort – if you were to come up to me with that from a place of mere ignorance (nothing wrong with that) and willful intent, as a professional I will take it to heart and go to all lengths to think it through and discuss it with you. I may adopt it, and I may not. Regardless. I’ll be ready to learn from you, and teach you where I can. I stake my pride on this. This is a deal and is unconditional.

Now, come up to me with that same proposition and this time from a place of not only mere ignorance but also arrogance, whereby you dictate to me that I better explain myself for deviating from what your trove of knowledge had imparted on you, understand that I am under no obligation to do as such. Also understand that, since you cannot be credited for anything you say, I cannot credit you with a shred of respect either. You have nothing to offer, and as a professional I have nothing to offer you. This is also a deal and is unconditional.

Key to learning

Humility is a prerequisite to learning. Don’t take my word for it, look at teachers who outright refuse to accept a student they know to be actively learning from another. You cannot reduce this to “ego.” Arrogance in some cultures and religions is defined by the rejection of truth when revealed. The method in which you approach a teacher is almost as important as choosing the right teacher to approach.

You cannot absorb when you’re coming from a high-ground where you think you know better.

This does not in any way mean you must accept whatever the teacher says, nothing of the sort. It’s more like a key to open a door. I’m saying this key is humility.

Ripples

If this experience is wider felt by others and not just myself, I think it’ll be an overall loss. While I don’t matter in my own, if we were to drive people with expertise to retire and before this neo-pagan god is omniscient (LOL) then I see one of two scenarios happening:

1. The very small pool of expertise that endured will sway the outcome towards its own bias (fewer people, much more weight assigned to them, since there’d be a threshold in place to exclude “the ignorant masses”)
2. Assimilation project comes to a halt, pool gets restored, and we try again

I’m fairly certain #2 will not happen, and I’m just as certain that regardless of myself and others, #1 will happen anyway. This ironic and ridiculously stupid conclusion almost made me want to erase this entire piece, but I didn’t. There’s still value in the “00100” aspect to it, even if the implications or potential solutions are no longer of concern to me.

—

On a more philosophical note, it’s been my suspicion for quite some time now that contrary to what our benevolent slavedrivers would have us believe, we are entering a dark if not the darkest age of modern history. Select, unchained, and free of thought. The experience I shared here, along with others that might seem unrelated, have finally convinced me that we already are in the darkest age.

This age’s hallmark dichotomy: a luddite, or a troglodyte. Choose wisely!

—

On a slightly merrier note, and to the delight of a particular non-audience, let me take this chance to respond to those who continue to command me politely and with no particular authority through statements like these:

“bUhT MaH GPT sAhS yOU OuTTA uSe aN eNuM”

Congratulations, we are all assimilated.

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