There are so many things that a human worker or coder has to do in a day and a lot of those things are non-core.
If someone is trying to be an expert on every minor task that comes across their desk, they were never doing it right.
An error page is a great example.
There is functionality that sets a company apart and then there are things that look the same across all products.
Error pages are not core IP.
At almost any company, I don't want my $200,000-300,000 a year developer mastering the HTML and CSS of an error page.
Sufficiently advanced orange juice extractor is the solution to any problem. Doesen't necessarily mean you should build the sufficient part.
>One: it's a replacement for googling a problem and much faster
This is more to do with the problem that google results have gone downhill very rapidly. It used to be you could find what you were looking for very fast and solve a problem.
>I could ask an LLM to do it and then tweak the results. Five minutes for "good enough" and it really is.
When the cost of failures is low, a hackjob can be economical, like a generated picture for entertainment or a static error page. Miscreating a support for a bridge it is not very economical
Oh but it is, used wisely.
One: it's a replacement for googling a problem and much faster. Instead of spending half an hour or half a day digging through bug reports, forum posts, and stack overflow for the solution to a problem. LLMs are a lot faster, occasionally correct, and very often at least rather close.
Two: it's a replacement for learning how to do something I don't want to learn how to do. Case Study: I have to create a decent-enough looking static error page for a website. I could do an awful job with my existing knowledge, I could spend half a day relearning and tweaking CSS, elements, etc. etc. or I could ask an LLM to do it and then tweak the results. Five minutes for "good enough" and it really is.
LLMs are not a replacement for real understanding, for digging into a codebase to really get to the core of a problem, or for becoming an expert in something, but in many cases I do not want to, and moreover it is a poor use of my time. Plenty of things are not my core competence or anywhere near the goals I'm trying to achieve. I just need a quick solution for a topic I'm not interested in.