Don’t credit the LLM

Lately, an odd habit seems to have caught on among my peers when they’ve done something with an LLM. When asked “how many support requests have we received about the new Feature X?”, they answer “according to [LLM tool], we’ve received 17 requests since it was released.” When posting a pitch document or a pull request, they volunteer “I asked [LLM tool] to write this for me” or “[LLM tool] wrote the unit tests”. Odd. Like a writer disclosing the spellchecker they used alongside every piece, or a pilot announcing their version of avionics software over the PA while taxiing to the runway. Why did I need to know that? At first, I put it down to a bit of novelty and excitement. But as this wore on, I started to wonder why someone might feel the need to declare their use of an LLM. Perhaps: You believe in ascribing credit where credit is due. Using an LLM feels like cheating so disclosing it makes you feel less like an imposter for having produced something amazing. The LLM’s performance…