I think the monitor example is different from the ChatGPT example.
A monitor is relatively cheap, I would own it, and it will primarily improve my life and secondarily improve my productivity.
In contrast, with ChatGPT, if I'm working on a difficult programming job, I spend X time thinking deeply and Y time actually typing the solution. A system that can type for me is convenient but it may not speed things since I can only think so fast, so many hours a day. And the situation of renting a thing for $20 isn't just a constant expense but a bit of a feeling of being beholden - the price could be and probably will be raised, there is a pressure to get value out of the thing by using it more, etc.
And there's no guarantee that a code generator will make my life more pleasant - the time saved typing may be absorbed by meetings or whatever.
It's a bit like home automation or car dongles - some people might like never throwing a switch as they walk into a room but I think fewer people would see a benefit they'd pay for since they still have to walk into the room.
This is how I'm thinking about it. If I save an hour a week, will I really clock out at 4PM on Friday and say "in the counterfactual world without ChatGPT, I would still be working, so I'm free to clock out now". No, probably not. Will I work on another task for extra hour to productivity-maxx? Also, probably not. Probably the rest of my tasks will magically expand to fill that time. Or I will spend it fiddling around with something else of dubious value. There's a whole psychological element to it. If I was a perfect min/max-er and allocated my time perfectly based on ROI, I would probably already be a millionaire by some other means.
And it's good to keep in mind, the comparison is not $20 for ChatGPT versus nothing. It's $20 for ChatGPT Plus, versus my API-hacky-solution for $2, versus ChatGPT free, for $0.
No, and it's a bit frustrating when several people explain in great detail the components of a programming day and how they combine and what the combination tendency is and then someone comes back with the same "but mah productivity". It's also typical for a certain mindset, of course.
Anyway, a counter-example is that the arguments above would not be against some broad framework that reduces both the thinking and the writing needed to construct programs - say a combination of a good programming, a good software engineering framework and a management that forced client requirements into a structured format. That sort of thing can reduce the needed programmer activity in a project on both the low and the high level and none of the arguments above object to this.
> there's no guarantee that a code generator will make my life more pleasant - the time saved typing may be absorbed by meetings
It'll be absorbed by reviewing the generated code, which you are ultimately responsible for. Is typing speed actually a bottleneck to many programmers, beyond certain point of expertise?
Seems to me like ChatGPT could assist you in the "thinking deeply" part just as much (or more) as it could help you do rote typing tasks. Or do you think your creativity is beyond its abilities?
A monitor is relatively cheap, I would own it, and it will primarily improve my life and secondarily improve my productivity.
In contrast, with ChatGPT, if I'm working on a difficult programming job, I spend X time thinking deeply and Y time actually typing the solution. A system that can type for me is convenient but it may not speed things since I can only think so fast, so many hours a day. And the situation of renting a thing for $20 isn't just a constant expense but a bit of a feeling of being beholden - the price could be and probably will be raised, there is a pressure to get value out of the thing by using it more, etc.
And there's no guarantee that a code generator will make my life more pleasant - the time saved typing may be absorbed by meetings or whatever.
It's a bit like home automation or car dongles - some people might like never throwing a switch as they walk into a room but I think fewer people would see a benefit they'd pay for since they still have to walk into the room.