It's already doing it. My daughter's just finishing a Masters, she tells me several of her fellow students openly admit to using software tools to turn out their essays. Her course is 50% Asian students whose English isn't isn't really up to scratch, they do the same and they record lectures and put them through a translator. Have to wonder how this will develop because it isn't going away.
LLM's can only tell you something useful if a lot of people have already said something useful (and reliable). All an LLM does is trawl what's available and try to come up with an answer. In anything football related that will include a lot of people who post nonsense either for monetised clicks or because they are fantasists.
My step daughter got a good degree in a stem subject and comes across as intelligent but I have seen her use a calculator to work out 10%
I've noticed that often when they don't know something they fill in the gaps with the most generic waffle, which can really miss the point of what it's been asked. Not sure why they aren't better at just saying when they don't know something!
I know a guy working in this area who is very passionate about the power of this area, and recommends using ChatGPT to teach yourself how to program and make your own tools and apps. He says one thing LLMs are very very good at is programming. He’s got a degree in Classics but has written some very complex programs by directing LLMs to do the work. We’re vastly underusing the power of them even as they stand - try asking your favourite chat bot if it can teach you how to program or to automate a process.
A whole lot of programmers are going to be out of work that's for sure , some of them are actively helping the thing that is going to take their job away
I think it's dramatically exaggerated the extent to which LLMs can write useful software. They know the syntax, they can write coherent lines. But creating software requires much more thinking than that. Good software developers are mindful of a lot of things beyond just writing a line of code that compiles. It's hard to describe the job to someone who doesn't do it, but I would say that 90% of the time the challenge isn't thinking of the code to write, it's more thinking of the right way to approach the problem, understanding exactly what you're telling the computer to do and what side effects it might have, making sure that what you're writing isn't going to be a pain for the next person to work on, and so on. AIs are heavily used by software developers for simple, menial or repetitive tasks but the idea of an AI operated by a non-developer replacing software developers altogether is fantasy stuff.
Yep And its all well and good trying to get an llm to make an app But if you dont understand the underlying code and its functions You cant fix it or diagnose anything And more importantly You have no idea of any security flaws within it Some small changes in one line can break something else Its great for helping a developer with a specific thing and automating menial tasks But you need to have a fundamental understanding Bit like building a house without any plumbing or electrical experience And not using any cement on the bricks etc what will happen though is it will be much harder to get a role as a junior dev and/or lower salaries which will save money in the short term but when all the senior devs start retiring, therell be a sudden gap which will then cost even more money to fix but short termism is the way these days
Largely agree. Software writing tools, code generators, have been around ages. I first came across them in the mid-80's and whilst they were fun to play with they weren't really capable of producing a finished, fit-for-purpose product. Useful for prototyping and as a design aid though.
I can now send out my Trojan order confirmations with a Jamaican accent... Subject: Bless Up Barry – Wi Get Yuh Order! Message: Wah gwaan Barry, Give thanks fi yuh order weh yuh place pon di 17th a August, 2025, at 3:34 inna di evenin'. Yuh order number a 15943 (WEB15943), an di status right now a "Payment Received" – everyting sort out clean. Soon as wi pack up di items an drop it off wid di delivery man, yuh wi get one next email fi let yuh know seh it deh pon di way. Obviously I won't, I'd look a right ****, but I'm sure there's more constructive things I can come up with.
I work in software dev and it's crap. It makes things up, promises that things can be done in certain ways, that simply can't and have never existed. Like anything, it's a useful aid / tool for when you know what you are doing, using it without any knowledge of programming is bound to fail.
Here's a good use of AI, don't understand the tech but if AI does this I'm all for it! How eight seconds of scratchy audio from a VHS tape gave a mum back her voice - BBC News
