LLMs breed false confidence in non-experts, sparking debate on skill erosion
Developers warn that AI tools remove the productive friction that signals the need to learn a domain, enabling incompetence at scale.
What to know
- LLMs lower barriers to entry so steeply that non-experts now tackle specialized work without realizing their incompetence, enabled by AI that masks rather than solves knowledge gaps.
- The core concern: friction—the difficulty of learning a domain—is essential signal, not noise; removing it creates false confidence without corresponding competence.
- The pattern echoes existing problems in trades and manufacturing, where automation has eroded craft knowledge and left fewer people able to judge tool output.
The dispute No significant disagreement; all voices treat LLM-enabled incompetence as a problem, differing only in emphasis—whether the focus is skill erosion or the psychological mechanism of false confidence. · positions read across 7 posts and comments
LLMs enable false competence by removing the friction that signals the need to learn a domain; this erodes real expertise.
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“The thing about LLMs is that they can remove an enormous amount of that friction. That friction is not noise, it is signal…Removal of this friction is a very, very bad thing.”
jwcph · Mastodon
LLMs breed unearned confidence, mimicking the overconfidence of those who lack self-awareness about their own limits.
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“LLMs give everyone the confidence of a mediocre middle-aged straight white guy.”
gvwilson (via spouse) · Mastodon
“Verstärkter Einsatz von immer besseren Maschinen führt zu Verlust von Fertigkeiten und Kenntnissen.”
arthurdent, Mastodon commenter · Mastodon · Aug 17, 4:43 AM
Elizafox DeveloperA CEO (unnamed company) Subject of anecdote
The record 1 articles and posts · last 30 days
What people are saying 6 voices from 1 site · best of 7 · verbatim
- Aug 17
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G
RE: https:// social.treehouse.systems/@Eliz afox/117108843517245521 My spouse's response to this is, "LLMs give everyone the confidence of a mediocre middle-aged straight white guy."
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Tja, eine sehr unbeliebte Meinung: https://social.treehouse.systems/@Elizafox/117108843517245521 Wenn du etwas nicht kannst und dich nicht sinnvoll damit beschäftigen willst: Lass es bleiben. Die AI hilft dir nicht (gut). Möchtest du es dennoch tun, such dir jemanden, der Ahnung hat und bezahl ihn dafür.
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A
RE: https:// social.treehouse.systems/@Eliz afox/117108843517245521 Interessant. Das ist EXAKT dasselbe, was schon seit einiger Zeit im # Handwerk passiert. Runtergbrochen auf die kleinste Formel: Verstärkter Einsatz von immer besseren Maschinen führt zu Verlust von Fertigkeiten und Kenntnissen. Natürlich ist es toll, wenn einem Technik die Arbeit…
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J
RE: https:// social.treehouse.systems/@Eliz afox/117108843517245521 "The thing about LLMs is that they can remove an enormous amount of that friction. That friction is not noise, it is signal. That friction is telling you that you need to learn the domain you are working with. Removal of this friction is a very, very bad thing." 🧑🍳💋 # AI
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C
RE: https:// social.treehouse.systems/@Eliz afox/117108843517245521 "That friction is not noise. It is signal."
- Aug 16
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A big issue with LLMs: It makes some people believe they are more competent than they are. Example: this company sent me some spam. At first I thought it was a scam. Then I dug into the company. And I realised: oh. No. This company is not a scam per se. No, these people actually believe their own bullshit. The CEO ran a web server as root. It got…