Now there is an alternative path that effectively bypasses the learning process, creating short term benefits for capital while inflicting long term damage to labor.
04.03.2026 01:29
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Now there is an alternative path that effectively bypasses the learning process, creating short term benefits for capital while inflicting long term damage to labor.
Prior to these tools, there was no alternative path to getting the feature out the door (short of delegating it to someone else who had already ridden the necessary learning curve).
But even at the most corporate ticket factory, if a junior developer was handed a feature request for something they weren't familiar with, their only way forward was gathering information on the topic and learning something about it.
Now that understanding a feature isn't a necessary prerequisite to shipping it, this affordance will inevitably vanish (likely at the expense of product quality). That's what I mean by devaluing the development of expertise.
I'm coming at this more from the perspective of capital vs labor.
Previously, labor was afforded time to be curious and learn because it directly benefitted capital. In the context of software development, it let companies ship features that earned them market share.
Agreed that it's a multiplier if you've already developed the necessary expertise - something that's happened over the course of a career where these tools weren't available.
It certainly devalues the *development* of expertise though.
Until recently, both you and your employer benefited from you having deep understanding of the systems you built and interacted with. Developing expertise was a shared goal - it was in everyone's best interest. Now not so much.
Ah this takes me back to your old SIGGRAPH course notes (one of my favs). Many aha moments were had reading through those.
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