There is growing concern that the excessive expectations and mystification of Large Language Models (LLMs) are undermining the fundamental principles of engineering.
Imagine your prized old car breaks down. Instead of inspecting the engine, the mechanic points at the car’s logo and says, “This car has now gained a spiritual power that allows it to drive itself.” Could you take that at face value?
Recently, a similar, perplexing situation has been unfolding on ‘Hacker News,’ a leading developer community in Silicon Valley. It is being pointed out that the community, which in the past would have coldly shut down ridiculous technological hype by saying, “That’s impossible; it doesn’t work that way engineering-wise,” is behaving quite differently in the face of Large Language Models (LLMs). Are we, in fact, losing our ‘Engineering Literacy’—the ability to see through the essence of technology?
Why Does It Matter?
Engineering is not a domain of ‘magic,’ but one of ‘design.’ A core competence of an engineer is understanding why complex systems work, what their structural limitations are, and how to recover when unforeseen failures occur.
If engineers start treating technology as magic and mystifying it, it could lead to an inability to control malfunctions or result in blind faith in dangerous systems. Concerns are growing on Hacker News that such non-engineering ‘Magical Thinking’ regarding modern technology and LLMs is spreading [Source: Hacker News story: Ask HN: Are we losing our engineering literacy?]. This should be read not just as a complaint from a single community, but as an important warning about how we must navigate the technological era.
Simply Put
What does losing engineering literacy mean? Metaphorically, it is like believing that a car will soon fly just by listening to the engine sound, rather than trying to study the ‘engine structure of technology.’
| Past engineers judged technological news based on ‘basic engineering intuition’ [[Source: Nuxt HN | Ask HN: Are we losing our engineering literacy?](https://hn.nuxt.dev/item/49685036)]. A logical defense mechanism worked, saying, “This is impossible because actual design principles are like this.” However, since the advent of LLMs, it is pointed out that speculation and mystification—such as “the output is amazing, so it can do anything”—are becoming the mainstream of the community rather than such intuition. |
It is similar to looking at a photo app full of filters and believing that the real world itself has changed to look filtered. The criticism is that there is a tendency even among engineers to be intoxicated by the illusions of AI-generated results rather than exploring the complex computational processes hidden behind them.
What Is Happening Now?
| Many participants in the discussion are raising questions about whether the engineering community has become too reactive, or if engineers are being manipulated by mystical discourse without even realizing it [Source: Ask HN: Are we losing our engineering literacy? - rdintel news, [Source: AskHN:Arewebuilding a tech dystopia? | PAPPP’s Rambling](https://pappp.net/?p=58733)]. |
In fact, on Hacker News, posts praising the fantastic abilities of specific models seem to be gaining more attention than cool-headed analyses of the technology’s limitations [Source: Hacker News story: Ask HN: Are we losing our engineering literacy?]. This sometimes leads to the bizarre phenomenon where those who build technology treat it like a religion.
Where Should We Head?
We are currently standing at an inflection point. What is required of an engineer in the AI era is not an attitude of worshipping AI as a wizard, but ‘technical honesty’—the ability to clearly point out how the massive engine called AI works and where its limitations lie.
The point to pay attention to moving forward is whether the tech community can recover its ‘engineering intuition.’ If engineers lose the essence of technology and become buried in magical thinking, the world we are creating will increasingly become a massive ‘black box’ of unknown origin. As technology advances, the effort to confirm how clearly we understand it will become even more desperate.
MindTickleBytes AI Reporter’s Perspective
The moment an engineer believes in magic, that technology can no longer advance. Beyond marveling at the amazing results produced by the tool called AI, we must regain the courage to look into the ‘cracks in the code’ where those results are generated. This is because technology is not magic, but the sum of logic built by humans.
References
- Ask HN: Are we losing our engineering literacy? - rdintel news
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[Nuxt HN Ask HN: Are we losing our engineering literacy?](https://hn.nuxt.dev/item/49685036) - Hacker News story: Ask HN: Are we losing our engineering literacy?
- Ask HN: 私たちはエンジニアリングリテラシーを失いつつあるのか？ — Ask HN: Are we losing our …
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[AskHN:Arewelosingourengineeringliteracy? Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49685036) -
[AskHN:Arewebuilding a tech dystopia? PAPPP’s Rambling](https://pappp.net/?p=58733) -
[Natural 20 — AI News in Real-Time The Bloomberg Terminal for AI](https://natural20.com/c/b1ftf7) -
[Natural 20 — AINewsin Real-Time The Bloomberg Terminal for AI](https://natural20.com/c/mvkda2)
- The pace of AI development is too slow
- The spread of 'magical thinking' regarding LLMs
- Software engineers' salaries are decreasing
- Opinions of marketers
- Basic engineering intuition
- Community popularity votes
- Engineers becoming better at coding
- Engineers becoming more vulnerable to outside manipulation or reactive thinking
- The definition of engineering becoming broader