While I strongly agree that heavy LLM usage in industries that actually collect customer data, or make important decisions is INCREDIBLY harmful (with quite a bit of unfortunate regularity), democratizing coding “for all” especially in small, narrow niches, is similar to democratizing art, singing, music, general creating.
As long as it’s “for you” or “small time”, there really isn’t a problem at all.
The only real downside so far to LLMs (ignoring environmental concerns) is when they’re heavily used and left unrestrained to go play with financial data, healthcare data, PII, anything with real consequences when it breaks. If a person is using it to automate their life. If a father is using it to help their kid with accessibility issues speak. If an artist is using it to help them write code so they can make a game. These are all good things.
You might think it’s shovelware; but the creator of those things is now super excited that their vision was made or their niche issue was helped, when no one else would.
As long as it’s “for you” or “small time”, there really isn’t a problem at all.
The only real downside so far to LLMs (ignoring environmental concerns) is when they’re heavily used and left unrestrained to go play with financial data, healthcare data, PII, anything with real consequences when it breaks. If a person is using it to automate their life. If a father is using it to help their kid with accessibility issues speak. If an artist is using it to help them write code so they can make a game. These are all good things.
You might think it’s shovelware; but the creator of those things is now super excited that their vision was made or their niche issue was helped, when no one else would.