[krinchan]

The shift here is that up until now output (code, in this case) required a degree of competence. As such, we socialized that being able to put out the code showed a degree of competence. The act of putting together a PR with working tests showed you had a level of knowledge past "I want X to do Y."

Now, you have a lot of people taught that output (a working PR) is competence. They walk around thinking they are competent because they can produce output.

When faced with criticism on working code, they collapse and flail immediately because to admit they can't explain or defend the code is to admit they are not competent. From there you've hit pretty much all of the problems that the rest of the Internet suffers from: cognitive dissonance, digging in because being wrong threatens your constructed identity, constructing echo chambers of AI Influencers peddling the latest prompt, and so on.