Falling in love with the machine

I struggled throughout my time at school. I always loved learning, and still do, but the structure and environment of school never really worked for me. So now, at 37, watching the rise of tools where you type a few sentences and an LLM spits out a hundred different explanations of a topic, I naturally fell in love.

Even though their answers are statistical predictions, with good inference they more often than not come close to a real, "true" answer. And even when they don't, bouncing ideas back and forth has already unlocked insights I would never have had otherwise - especially as a remote worker sitting at home. I wonder what would have happened to my academic career if these tools had been available back then. I could have taken notes in class, gone home, and spent hours trying to really understand a topic I was too shy to ask follow-up questions about, or one I had missed because I wasn't paying attention.

This thought sat with me for a long time, and it shifted my overall position towards seeing LLMs as a net positive (provided we get the regulatory environment for building data centers, training, and usage in order).

A doorway many others have passed through

That is, until I read the book "Inexplicable Magic" by Susan Piver. Now, this book has nothing to do with LLMs or even programming in general. It's a book about meditation and Buddhism.

In it, she touches on something I was subconsciously aware of but could never find the right words for. She writes:

Who you learn from is important because you have entered the practice via a certain doorway through which many others have passed. This doesn't mean you can't walk out and go through other doorways. It's simply a factor that bears noticing.

And further on:

[...] Is there a lineage behind your instructor and their instructions? If so, good, because we don't want any made up bullshit.

The people who shaped me

I am currently writing the second edition of my book "Rust Web Development". When I approached Manning with the idea, I wondered why I would even write a book in this day and age. While writing the first edition, I kept thinking of all the teachers, senior engineers, and managers who shaped me into the professional I am today. They contributed as much to my growth and to who I am as all the work I put into my career myself.

Their guidance, their wisdom, their view of the industry and my profession (and, to be honest, what kind of humans they were) still shape my worldview today. Later in the book, Susan Piver suggests holding someone in mind while you meditate — a way to give back and connect with the people who inspire you and mean something to you.

Before starting my professional software engineering career, I did an apprenticeship as an electrician, and it wasn't even a question that you had a foreman who guided and taught you. Depending on your skills and aspirations, you would (ideally) be paired with the right foreman, one who could challenge you and grow you in the way you wanted and needed.

I still think fondly of all the guidance, mentorship, and teaching I received. Every day, at work and in my private life, their teachings and work are part of my own.

What gets lost

What will all of this look like if we let profit-seeking corporations streamline our day-to-day lives even more? If we let smart-sounding machines replace real human connection and teaching? I love having these LLMs at my fingertips, but after two or three hours of bouncing ideas back and forth, I more often than not feel empty and burned out. When I pair program, or sit in a room with other people trying to find a solution, I almost always come out of those long sessions inspired and motivated. I often keep working after my normal workday is done, because I still feel the fire in me, the urge to create.

If anything, I am writing this as a reminder to myself that nothing will ever replace the emotional connection we build with other humans. We carry their thoughts, ideas, and outlook with us, let them shape us, and carry them forward to the next generation. I don't think I will ever tell my children tales of my long coding sessions with an LLM, but I will tell them about the long nights and intense sessions I had with other humans: Moments that shaped and defined who I am today.

Final thoughts

These thoughts give me enough motivation to keep writing books. Even though I know they won't have a massive impact on society, I hope that at least one young engineer will read one, look at the cover, and someday tell someone that they learned this from Bastian Gruber, and not from a statistically generated output produced many years ago.