This is not a critique of LLMs, it's just the new state of affairs that since people can more easily solve their own problems it has somehow become more difficult to be helpful to others.
For many hobby open source developers the reward and motivation was simply random people saying thank you.
LLMs have disrupted this. It's much easier for people to silo themselves off and fix any problem that appears, without the need of a community. It's easier for people to discuss topics via copy/pasting from an LLM versus actually having a deep understanding of the material.
> They liked the community of solving problems together and being useful for each other. They liked the difficult collaborations when trying to find solutions. They liked discussing with people who had this niche interest who also spent time obsessing over it to gain the skills necessary to make an impact.
People can still do all that! With or without LLMs. There's still plenty of friction around which to form those kinds of collaborations, it's just at a much higher level than people had been working. It's not like LLMs solved everything, yet people make it out to seem that way. But rather going to where there's still friction -- where the collaboration can thrive -- they lament the existence of the lubricant itself.
> It's easier for people to discuss topics via copy/pasting from an LLM versus actually having a deep understanding of the material.
Maybe online? I just attended a robotics conference where experts in academia and industry spent a week sharing their research and projects. I would say a good 70% of presentations, papers, and posters had a LLM foundation. And yet, people knew what they were talking about very deeply, and were collaborating.
i fail to realize how is this a negative thing
pretty much this, i realized it in the comments section of this video