"The Copilot Delusion" by Jj https://deplet.ing/the-copilot-delusion/
"You’re not working with a copilot. You’re playing Russian roulette with a loaded dependency graph."
Infinitely quotable. I wish I could write like this.
@nolan My favorite line is this: “When you outsource the thinking, you outsource the learning.”
You can't repeat that often enough.
It's good but misses an important impact of outsourcing to LLMs.
They don't learn, so learning stops.
Also they don't think.
Sorry :rofl:
@nolan
@nolan So many gems in this one, thank you for sharing it!
"A real copilot...? ... When they speak, it’s to enhance the pilot—not to shotgun random advice into the cockpit and eject themselves mid-flight."
Edit1 - Oh, and this one:
"'I’m just moving fast!' you say. Yeah—straight off a cliff, like a lemming."
Edit2 - More:
"It’s trained on code that’s already an insult to silicon."
"We’re building a world where that curiosity gets lobotomized at the door."
@nolan agreed, absolutely stunning writing!
@nolan You lil FOMO goblin 🤣 Such a good pet name though.
@nolan Infinitely quotable but let's quote it anyway:
"But I just use AI for boilerplate!" you whimper, clutching your Co-Pilot subscription. Listen to yourself. If you’re writing the same boilerplate every day like some industrial-age cog monkey, automate it yourself. Write a library. Invent a macro. Reclaim some dignity.
Just perfect 😂
@nolan I like this one: "When you outsource the thinking, you outsource the learning" Simple but effective.
I came out of a meeting 45 minutes ago where they were all worshipping Copilot LOL...
What a bunch of yes-men
I still refuse to use it at work- I am not backing down on that.
@taschenorakel @Sonic2k @nolan "seems" being the keyword.
As a Green, please ask yourself if you can live with the ecological impact of that. Ought to be enough to avoid it before even tackling the other points.
@nolan The fact the author is able to slam dunk on it but also acknowledge the small things it is good for makes this perfect.
I'd have never understood Python as well as GTK concepts this fast (especially GTK) without it, but oh my god I'd never use it to generate more than examples or general overviews of codebases that are new to me. The examples it can generate and "terminology-translations for beginners" it provides are great, but often enough the code is just madness.
@nolan perplexity "shouts out", too, to use AI as a tool not as a compagnon
@nolan
It's "Children of the Magenta Line" all over again.
Starting in the 1980s, commercial airline pilots had new layers of cockpit automation to work with, when the Flight Management System was introduced.
The people flying the plane became dependent on all the automation working correctly at all times.
https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/09/stepping-down-in-automation-the-real-lesson-for-children-of-the-magenta-line/
The solution was not so much "get out of the cockpit", as cut out the automation as appropriate and fly by hand.
"Click-click, Click-click."
@nolan Almost every paragraph has a brilliant quip, love it
@nolan "By writing a routine on Monday, rewriting it Tuesday, and realizing Wednesday it still sucks." i feel seen.
May 23, 2025, 11:35 AM@nolan half-way through the article, i remembered that "copilot" (in aviation) doesn't mean "autopilot"
@nolan heh, great points in there to use against apologists:
"But I just use AI for boilerplate!" you whimper, clutching your Co-Pilot subscription. Listen to yourself. If you’re writing the same boilerplate every day like some industrial-age cog monkey, automate it yourself. Write a library. Invent a macro. Reclaim some dignity.
So true:
"I’m just moving fast!" you say. Yeah. Straight off a cliff, like a lemming. AI isn’t helping you build something novel. It can’t. It only knows what’s been done before. It’s autocomplete with a superiority complex.
And the next paragraph even! Yes, we earnt the right to call ourselves programmers.
Kids would stay up all night on IRC with bloodshot eyes, […]
I feel seen.
Because if [GitHub Copilot or equivalent] walked into your stand-up in human form, typing half-correct garbage into your codebase while ignoring your architecture and disappearing during cleanup, you’d fire them before they could say "no blockers".
And that’s the real way managers ought to look at this.
@nolan Come for the perspectives on coding with ai, and stay for the quote worthy rants