It's a C+ at best

It's a C+ at best. That's what Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, had to say about ChatGPT's writing ability about a year ago. I was surprised at first because I thought LLMs were great at writing—but then I realized he had spent over a decade writing and editing high-quality articles. It was just a passing comment in a larger conversation about the promise of the AI industry, but often, I find myself coming back to it. It’s helped me maintain a balanced mindset about AI tools and how I adopt them at work.

Happiness is reality minus expectations
— Tom Magliozzi, former co-host of Car Talk

Software tools, historically, have been extremely good at being reliable. Their deterministic nature has helped set appropriate expectations for the people using them. LLMs are not that. They are probabilistic at their core. So we need to find a way to tone down our expectations when using AI tools. Viewing AI as a fast and always available intern whose output is C+ at best helps me set reasonable expectations. Expectations that keep me cautious while not becoming frustrated when they get things wrong.

If you never try, you'll never know what you're capable of.
— John Barrow

I could be an expert in my domain. But there is a lot of day-to-day work where I could use some help. Modern software development (or many modern jobs, for that matter) requires us to understand and contribute in many adjacent domains. Now, I have an intern who, while not perfect, is more confident and potentially knowledgeable than me in those domains. That helps me cross some bridges I am hesitant to approach. It's still C+ at best, but many times, that's good enough. In a completely new area, C+ is a great start.

If you want to build a great company, you have to surround yourself with A players
— Steve Jobs

I am expected to do A+ work—especially in my core domain. I can't fully delegate it to a C+ intern and call it a day. If the intern ends up saving my time, I ought to use the saved time to make my work much better. Sometimes, the intern doesn't save any time—and that's OK. It's nothing new. Interns often take more time from you than they save.

'What's not going to change in the next 10 years?' is the more important question
— Jeff Bezos

Nilay might grade the new models higher, and indeed, LLMs have improved significantly. But, the exact grade matters less than their true nature: usually good enough but rarely exceptional. That's still the case and likely going to be the case for as long as they are trained using the whole of human mediocrity. A little adjustment in mindset can get the best out of us with AI.