To use your analogy again, it's kind of like the shop boss buying everyone a table saw and then saying "The best way to use the table saw is just experiment with it, it's the fastest and most accurate straight cut we can get - the future is table saw."
Yes, this is, in fact, how adoption of table saws and other such tools looked like, while they were still new tools. The basic form and function was established and its utility proven in both testing and early adopters, but as new kind of general tool on the market, every user from "early majority" was still writing the operating playbook for their specific shop conditions and kind of work they're doing.
So yes, it's a great analogy. We're right now well in the stage where bosses say, "evidence is in and conclusively shows this is useful for us, now the job is figuring out exactly how to work it into our particular business".
> figuring out exactly how to work it into our particular business
This is the most crucial bit. Neither ramming it down developers throats nor rejecting it wholesale is particularly productive. You need the conservative people onboard as well, to discover critical edges and failure modes. Including their criticism in the adoption process instead of bluntly banning it is the smarter move. Of course, there will be a few people who just don't play, they will fold eventually or be let go.
No, that's not what this analogy is about. At all.
See, table saws are dangerous. Famously so. One of, if not the most dangerous tools available to the general public. They spin quickly with lots of torque and pull things in faster than you can react. Pressure can also send loose pieces of wood backwards at high speed. Fast enough to pass through a person sometimes. It's like being hit with an arrow.
Tablesaw accidents can remove fingers and hands instantly, puncture organs.
They can be used safely but they're circumstantial, the worst thing you can do with a table saw is experiment. Once you realise there's a 12-inch razor sharp blade spinning at 3000rpm with up to 5HP you begin to respect how dangerous it could be and want to warn others.
It's intentionally hyperbolic. But you see what I'm saying here?
It's hard to be hyperbolic about danger and spinning objects, blades, chains after looking into the crazy world of farmers and military civil engineers; a shed built whipper snipper for young trees in a plantation to clean rows made out of chains welded to a tractor rim spinning horizontally hanging down behind rig on small tractor and driven by the PTO is not the scariest thing I've seen.
Long story short, people using tools often make and evolve their own tools to better do their work - and sometimes iterations of those proto-tools are kinda super bloody sketchy. There is care to be taken, there will be close calls.
I know GP said "available to general public", but my mind went straight to PTO after reading "One of, if not the most dangerous tools". Less common to see (especially in cities) than saws, but I think larger proportion of people understand they have to be careful near table saws than PTO shafts.
> after looking into the crazy world of farmers and military civil engineers
The whole history of aviation and space exploration is chock full of engineers, physicists and chemists doing crazy levels of experimentation.
That said, my point was different - unlike GP, I ask to consider workshops that had extensive experience with dangers of powered or high mechanical leverage hardware. It's entirely plausible and reasonable for people running those shops to say, "here is the new dangerous power tool, it's obviously pretty useful (ask your friends at $X or $Y if you don't see it), figure out how and where to best work it into our specific workflows, so it makes us most bang for the buck".
I think this is still a perfectly decent analogy for LLMs.
The danger may not be "personal injury before you can react", but it is both parts separately, as there's reports of them giving unsafe advice and also of them performing undesired tasks faster than humans can react.
(That said: while I regard "AI doom is marketing hype" to be a conspiracy theory when applied to OpenAI and Anthropic, public statements from this guy are absolutely a case where I'd say hyping up destructive power is the point of his job: https://www.ai.mil/About/Leadership/Bio-Page/Article/3940370...)
