But this is how disruptive innovation works. I recall that even around 2005, after digital camera sales overtook the sales of film cameras, people were still asking "If digital is so good, why aren't the professional photographers using them?" and concluding that digital photography is just a toy that will never really replace print.

This is not really the same level of argument. The post is arguing against the idea that software is incredibly cheap to make through AI right now, not that AI cannot ever make complete software products from scratch in the future.

But what?

Give some concrete examples of why current LLM/AI is disruptive technology like digital cameras.

That’s the whole point of the article. Show the obvious gains.

The digital camera analogy is flawed. Digital sensors had a clear and measurable path to improvement: megapixels, ISO, dynamic range. LLMs have no such clear path to 'understanding' and 'reliability'. It's entirely possible we've hit a fundamental ceiling of their capabilities, not that we're just in an early stage

That feels a bit different. By 2005 it was obvious that digital cameras would, at some point in the future, be good enough to replace most high-end film camera use, unless Moore’s Law went out the window entirely. So it was highly likely that digital cameras would take over. There is no inevitability to llm coding tools hitting that ‘good enough’ state.

And they’re not even really talking about the future. People are making extremely expansive claims about how amazing llm coding tools are _right now_. If these claims were correct, one would expect to see it in the market.

It is an aside, but: I am not sure I encountered any professional photographers saying that in 2005, FWIW; only non-serious photographers were still prattling on about e.g. the mystical and conveniently malleable "theoretical" resolution of film being something that would prevent them ever switching.

There were still valid practical and technical objections for many (indeed, there still is at least one technical objection against digital), the philosophical objections are still as valid as they were (and if you ask me digital has not come close to delivering on its promise to be less environmentally harmful).

But every working press photographer knew they would switch when there were full-frame sensors that were in range of budget planning that shot without quality compromise at the ISO speed they needed or when the organisations they worked for completed their own digital transition. Every working fashion photographer knew that viable cameras already existed.

ETA: Did it disrupt the wider industry? Obviously. Devastatingly. For photographers? It lowered the barrier to entry and the amount they could charge. But any working photographer had encountered that at least once (autofocus SLRs did the same thing, minilabs did the same thing, E6 did it, etc. etc.) and in many ways it was a simple enabling technology because their workflows were also shifting towards digital so it was just the arrival of a DDD workflow at some level.

—

Putting aside that aside, I am really not convinced your comparison isn't a category error, but it is definitely an interesting one for a couple of reasons I need to think about for a lot longer.

Not least that digital photography triggered a wave of early retirements and career switches, that I think the same thing is coming in the IT industry, and that I think those retirements will be much more damaging. AI has so radically toxified the industry that it is beginning to drive people with experience and a decade or more of working life away. I consider my own tech retirement to have already happened (I am a freelancer and I am still working, but I have psychologically retired, and very early; I plan to live out my working life somewhere else, and help people resisting AI to continue to resist it)

It's asking "If digital is so good, why aren't there more photos?"

It’s actually comical watching the AI shills trot out the same points in every argument about the utility of LLMs. Now you’re supposed to say that after 10 years of digital, the only people sticking with film were the “curmudgeons”.

I for one hail the curmudgeons. Uphold curmudgeon thought.