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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4903 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 10, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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It’s interesting how useful LLMs seem for programming. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the first thing software engineers optimized their new toy to do was write code. It’s like how there are so many moves about movies.

I think also software engineers are especially attuned to inefficiencies in productivity in a way regular white-collar workers are blind/indifferent to. Software engineers imo are 10-100x more efficient at doing the same work than even other marginally technical white-collar workers like data analysts do (I'm sure there is a lot of productivity in just knowing how to use concurrent/asynchronous programming, on top of programming at all).

Software devs are the only people increasing their wpm, installing window mangers, use the cli, makes custom keyboard shortcuts, leveraging scripts and automation whenever feasible (sometimes to their detriment) etc.

You see a lot of efficiency exploration in finance, consulting, and some doctors. The last field is mine and you see a lot of people desperately trying to figure out how to apply LLMs to save time or increase throughput, and I've heard tons of stories about finance and consulting people doing similar things prior to LLMs.

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