Same could be said for every language abstraction or systems layer change. When we stopped programming kernel modules and actually found a workable interface it opened the door to so many more developers. I'm sure at the time there was skepticism because people didn't understand the internals of the kernel. That's not the point. The point is to raise the level of abstraction to open the door, increase productivity and focus on new problems.
When you see 30-50 years of change you realise this was inevitable and in every generation there's new engineers entering with limited understanding of the layers beneath. Even the code produced. Do I understand the lexers and the compilers that turn my code in to machine code or instruction sets? Heck no. Doesn't mean I shouldn't use the tools available to me now.
No, but you can understand them if given time. And you can rely on them to be some degree of reliable approaching 100% (and when they fail it will likely be in a consistent way you can understand with sufficient time, and likely fix).
LLMs don’t have these properties. Randomness makes for a poor abstraction layer. We invent tools because humans suffer from this issue too.
> it opened the door to so many more developers. [...] That's not the point. The point is to raise the level of abstraction to open the door, increase productivity and focus on new problems.
There are diminishing returns. At some point, quoting Cool Hand Luke, some men you just can't (r|)teach.
When you see 30-50 years of change you realise this was inevitable and in every generation there's new engineers entering with limited understanding of the layers beneath. Even the code produced. Do I understand the lexers and the compilers that turn my code in to machine code or instruction sets? Heck no. Doesn't mean I shouldn't use the tools available to me now.