In a fascinating essay by Greg Knauss:
People will argue that speaking English to LLMs is just another level of abstraction away from the physics of how the machine actually works. And while that’s technically true — the worst kind of true — it also misses the point. Industrialization fundamentally changes things, by quantum degrees. A Ding Dong from a factory is not the same thing as a gâteau au chocolat et crème chantilly from a baker which is not the same thing as cramming chunks of chocolate and scoops of whipped cream directly into your mouth while standing in front of the fridge at 2:00am. The level of care, of personalization, of intimacy — both given and taken — changes its nature. Digging a trench is a very different thing than telling someone to dig a trench. Assembling a clock is a very different thing than asking Siri for the time.
Greg Knauss (eod.com)
What a great comparison.
The essay goes on to compare the output of agentic AI coding (the code itself) versus the result (the product it makes). And everyone cares about the result much more than the output. Nobody reads they code – they should – and everyone looks at the pretty thing it built in 5 minutes and says “wow!”
In a decade’s time, articles like these feel like they will be littered across the Internet as small tombstones dotting the web, reminding us of the before-times.