LLMs and Consumptive-mode Knowledge Work
For the longest time, knowledge work has been productive. People have had go deep into various systems and perform their work within them, and produce knowledge. They had to deeply understand the systems they interfaced with.
Think of a new software engineer having to understand large parts of the codebase before developing a new feature, no matter how small. The new feature was produced by the software engineer based on their understanding, and in producing it, their understanding deepened. It might or might not show up in Confluence pages, but there was new understanding generated. Over time, the software engineer would refine that understanding, and build bigger features, produce new knowledge. Having to do this would deepen their insight about programming in general, and their subfield in particular. Dealing with bugs, reading logs, coming to the limits of their chosen tool, all would be educational and productive.
Now, consider the same engineer relying on LLMs to do large chunks of their coding to move fast. They will do that, but their insight will not develop. What would previously require laser-sharp focus would now be glazed over. Things that'd be internalised by the second or third feature the engineer develops would take weeks to develop. All of this, because the engineer is not producing knowledge meaningfully. They are consuming knowledge and using it to do their job.
This is one of the big concerns of the LLM era which is upon us. We will consume knowledge and produce less of it. It will be an intellectually impoverishing experience. It will also increase existing skill gaps. Those who are already familiar with the guts of a system will still produce knowledge and gain deeper insight. Those who are not will continue to have a shallower, more superficial understanding of these systems, barring efforts made to get to know the system in a traditional way.
Consumptive-mode knowledge work is about to become a much bigger part of the knowledge-work economy, and it will lead to, hopefully, a boom for consultants who have worked in the old-fashioned way.