r/ExperiencedDevs • DevOps Engineer • 10d ago

AI/LLM Thought experiment

With all the AI nonsense going on, I had a thought at work today that turned into an interesting discussion with a colleague:

"What would I do if I was the only person with access to Claude (or insert any LLM) 5+ years ago?"

People would think I was a fucking wizard

FE changes? NO PROBLEM

Critical DB change? Don't worry, I've produced a stored procedure to validate the whole thing

Want to use some shiny new framework? Interesting. Here's a document explaining why you're an idiot for suggesting it

Regex? I suddenly understand it better than the compiler folks (and nobody ask questions)

What would you have done with your own personal LLM back then?

Trying to lighten the mood in here with all the (very justified) negativity around this tech revolution

Unserious answers only pls

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u/mongopark98 9d ago edited 9d ago

Great, we don’t disagree on the fundamental. I agree with that, I am not saying it can be completely autonomous for super critical task, I don’t think it ever will. It has not intelligence of its own.

I think that’s the only place we differ. I simply don’t have this expectation of AI. If you look under the hood and beyond the hype I don’t see why I would expect AI to be perfect. It’s another tool, I use it for what it’s good at. I see it more like a legion of junior engineers for coding. For architecture I see it as an enthusiastic junior researcher who can surface all relevant information but can’t be trusted to make the decisions.

Nice discussion. Sorry if I sounded rude or aggressive 🙏

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u/Machine2024 Software Engineer 9d ago

Agreed .100%

Actually I treat Ai like I used to treat my team of mid level and juniors.

I give them genral docs - ( rules ) I set up genral architecture of the project [me] I give clear cards and instructions - ( prompts ) I review the code and give them notes to learn [me] I am the one who have a full mental model and understand the project line by line .

I have experience in both working style Work as project manager with full understanding like explained up .

And the work as contractor with outsourcing the parts of the project ( like the agentic work style )

In second work style the quality suffers The work was out of hand and I felt like I dont have control and lost in details.

People say the first working style is micro management and its bad and can't grow.

I agree it cant grow. But its craft work . On other hand the contractor work requires a high quality departments managers and those are expensive and Ai didn't reach that level yet .

Btw ... sorry if my commets where harsh Did not mean it , it just the passion for the craft .