GeLLMan amnesia

When people talk about all the jobs AI will soon automate away pay close attention. It's always somebody else's job.

The CEO who doesn't need engineers because AI can vibe code it all. The engineers who don't need a CEO because the AI makes better strategy faster. The programmer who doesn't need an architect, the architect who doesn't need a programmer. The product owner who can explore their own features, the developer who can have AI write the perfect product requirements.

And let's not forget all the marketers, lawyers, business analysts, doctors, and other knowledge-based professions that we'll never need to consult ever again.

I call this GeLLMan Amnesia. I wasn't the first but once you notice, you see it everywhere.

Named after the original Gell-Mann Amnesia effect coined by Michael Crichton – the guy who wrote Jurassic Park. When you watch LLMs talk about a field you're deeply familiar with, you find all sorts of flaws and little details they can't yet do without you. They're getting better and more useful, but never quite reaching your level of expertise.

Asymptotically approaching expert level.

Part of this is because as LLMs improve, you leverage them as a tool and also get better. When they write more of the code, you have more brain power available for the things you uniquely contribute. Like using a calculator for arithmetic so you can focus on the math.

But a bigger reason is that things look smooth and simple from a distance and complex from up close. As Paul Graham said in How To Do Great Work, knowledge is fractal.

Knowledge expands fractally, and from a distance its edges look smooth, but once you learn enough to get close to one, they turn out to be full of gaps.

~ Paul Graham

That's why LLMs could never automate your field, but those other people's fields? Oh yeah that's easy.

Cheers,
~Swizec

PS: those nooks and crannies deep in the details? That's your edge. Knowing those makes you the expert.