The sunset of Arrogance as a Service

There’s a beautiful and undervalued benefit that LLMs bring: they’re a caricature of human brain and while, of course, there’s no way to mistake one for another, the resemblance is striking.

If you tell an LLM that they’re expected to be an expert- they’ll do their best to behave like one: confidently presenting a random thought as a fact and avoiding questioning its own choices at all costs.

And here’s an uncomfortable thought to sit with: who do you think they learned it from?

Preamble

From “Men don’t cry” to “Fake it till you make it”, we’ve coached people of all genders to conform to one standard. We went as far as to build empires on the ideals of conformity. The empires might have fallen, but the mindset turned out to be far more resilient than a communist party.

The scary thing about the mindset of “it is what it is” is that even if you see a problem, you’re convinced that it can never be fixed and the only way forward is to keep pushing.

It’s hard to keep pushing, but we proudly do so and as Nautilus Pompilius, an underground band from the Soviet Era, sang: “Here, fatigue is considered the measure of work”. Add sunk costs fallacy into the frame and you’ll see how empathetic individuals could turn into unforgiving mass reporting their neighbours for wearing colorful pants.

The other side of the fence was no better: “everyone for himself” and “hustle culture” measured people based on the amount of money they made and deprived them from any support and security. Indoctrinated with the idea that there’s no other way, generation after generation they’ve suffered, persevered and forced others to do the same.

Marshall Rosenberg in his book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life suggests that conflicts and disagreements rise from the unmet needs and that no one is inherently a bad person. The opposite is also true - an individual placed in a dangerous environment, just as a crab in a bucket, would prioritise their own survival, dragging others down.

So what does it have to do with software development?

Engineers vs Leaders

Engineers of all levels, just like photographers, chefs and managers are still humans. They have aspirations, needs, wants and things that make their lives harder. And throughout their careers they've learned two things:

1. If you're a worker, you're expected to be humble, respect your eldersleader and go above and beyond in your work
2. If you're a leader, you're expected to be confident and never make any mistakes

It's funny how perfectly these match gender norms, but I live in a progressive country and I can attest that it's not related to gender in the workspace. You'll notice men being afraid to take initiative and women being afraid to be seen as weak.

You'll notice that the higher you go up the career ladder, the more definitive it gets. I've seen a few places where vulnerability and decisiveness has been branded as "not senior"; and uninformed, but confident speakers have been cherished for their seniority.

Don't get me wrong, confidence, the lived one, does come from experience, but arrogance can be easily mistaken for one. And arrogant people build arrogant software without any ill intentions.

The other day a person asked in a leadership online forum for an advice on the software that would track posts from certain people on LinkedIn and comment with a "Oh my, that's a great way to put it!" response. When he has been gently reminded that this would be not only against LinkedIn terms of service, but also unethical, he answered that all posts on LinkedIn is AI slop anyway and "everyone does that". And yes, reader, I don't think it occurred to him that one is the direct result of the other, because he has been hurt, disappointed and his need to promote his business or his career remained unmet.

Arrogance as a Service

We, humans, are always trying to make sense of things. The world is scary and uncertain and having at least something figured out brings us joy and sense of comfort. Making decisions, prioritizing and questioning things is tiring and hard. So having someone who comes in with all the answers and all the certainty in the world is very comforting and appealing.

Now, luckily, we're past mass charging the water from TV, we learned that it didn't magically cure anything, but now we fell victim to the AI who will replace and/or save us all.

And that's very human. We need to believe in something, we have to feel that our lives, insignificant in comparison with the lifetime of the universe, mean something. And we have to believe that they mean something good.

I don't think enough of us understand that AI is a huge number of math formulas chained together with its coefficients adjusted to match a huge number of scenarios. And what we don't understand is unpredictable and thus scary.

Of course we'd choose to believe people who made these things! They definitely know more about it than we do.

But we learn. We match patterns, we try, we fail and after a certain point we can no longer believe in lies. And it's soul crushing.

The Sunset

Remember the feeling when you were dumped. Days, months or years later you've inevitably came to realise that it was for the best, you've retroactively seen the "red flags" and perhaps have felt a little bit dumb for ever thinking that they were "the one". It's not dumb or naive to be excited and to believe: you've opened up to an idea, gave it your all and have learned something from it.

And I am very certain that the mirage, not only of all-powerful AIs, but also of our previous beliefs is fading. I've seen a legion of people choosing small vendors and self-hosting; I've seen a rise of solopreneurs and small business owners; And I've seen countless of brave souls holding arrogant monarchs accountable (they're everywhere, but you won't miss it on Bluesky, for example).

The system that is out of balance is destined to tilt - it's just a matter of time. And with everything that happened in the past few years - the time is clearly now.

I do sound like a doomsayer, don't I? But I don't think it's a bad thing. It's not a good thing either - any change is painful and uncomfortable.

I've seen job ads stating the salary ranges. I've seen people booing yet-another-AI-SaaS off the thread. I've seen humble and open-minded people take high level positions. And I've seen engineers learning respectful candor and to stand their ground.

Sunset is beautiful. Let's enjoy the view.