[WCSTombs]

The problem with this analogy is an LLM isn't very much like a "tool" at all.

- In cases of practical relevance, you pay a recurring fee to keep using it - not very tool-like.

- Rather than doing a predictable action in response to user inputs, you give it imprecise instructions and it does something unpredictable but vaguely correct in response, which then must be thoroughly inspected.

- In cases of practical relevance, its actual operation (not just design) is entirely handled by a third party, not by the user.

These things describe a subcontractor, not a tool. We don't insist that a chef at a restaurant use this tool or that tool, but if the restaurant was actually just outsourcing all its cooking to some other company...yeah, that would absolutely factor into my decision to go there or not.

[Jemaclus]

Sure. But this is a little pedantic, no?

Let's go with your analogy: you would hire contractors to build a house, but not to put an IKEA bookshelf together. You would hire a professional chef to cook a five course meal, but not to heat up pop tarts. You would hire a surgeon to operate on your brain, but not to prescribe advil.

The point is that it's one of many things (tools, contractors, whatever) in your arsenal, and you use whichever one you need. You don't automatically reach for the surgeon or the chef or the contractor.

[WCSTombs]

But the thing is, in this analogy, we are the chef, surgeon, or builder. We're the ones other people look for when they can't do the thing by themselves (in this case, writing software).

Neither my analogy or yours is exact, but it's really worth thinking about.

[Jemaclus]

Right. But OP's question isn't "do you need a chef?" the question OP posed is more akin to "why should chefs use knives when they have blenders?" or "why should I build an IKEA bookshelf myself when I can hire a contractor to build a house?"

Because they're two different tools and situations.