[samuell]

I think one can do an analogy with search engines.

I noticed that a lot of people are terrible with search engines. They would carefully try to craft a combination of keywords that they hope will answer their problem.

I have pretty much always been able to find the answers I need quickly, by using a few ideas I see not that many around me use, such as trying to imagine in what context the answer might be answered (what would be the title of a blog or forum post about it, etc), as well as searching for the exact error message if I got one etc.

Now, search engines have gotten a lot better over the last say 5-10 years, so this skill isn't as important anymore, but I remember how the ability to find things quickly was a real productivity booster.

I think something similar might happen with LLMs.

You will have a (probably much bigger) productivity boost by being great at leveraging them.

With time, the user interfacing tooling and general knowledge of them will get much better, so the relative benefit you have will grow smaller, but it will for sure always be useful to know how to use them well.

My 5c.

[soco]

The only point where I disagree is "the search engines have gotten a lot better over the last say 5-10 years". My impression is rather the opposite.

[SargeDebian]

For most people, finding the result they're looking for is probably easier, partially because they're not that picky, and because things like integrating Google Maps into Google makes finding places easier. For a specific group (concentrated here on HN) finding the exact right result has become more difficult, in part because search engines no longer strictly adhere to some operators.

In parallel, the internet just changed, which means "the best result" may just be a worse one. In part because of search engines, and SEO. If you want a recipe, now the best recipe may just be the one that has a long description of the author's relationship with their mother who used to cook this dish, which you have to skip, because of SEO.