This week on HN: Don't be a meat proxy, it's insulting to say code was never the hard part, and why is everyone in tech so sad?

Sat Aug 08 2026

In this post, I'll be sharing some of my favourite posts from Hacker News (HN) this week. You'll notice that there's a theme tying these posts together. Something that we would not have thought to speak about when I first started working in the industry back in 2017. It is about how to be a tech worker in a world in which LLMs are getting really good at generating code.

Don't be a meat proxy (opens new window) by Niklas Gruhn

In his post, Niklas Gruhn, coins a banging new term, meat proxy, for someone who relays LLM outputs without any additional effort on their part. Think: a blob of AI slop pasted as an answer to a question or a pull request created uncritically without a hint of human verification.

“Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers (opens new window) by Senko Rašić

On HN and elsewhere, we've been seeing commentors saying something along the lines of "writing code was never the hard part anyway" as a form of self-reassurance in response to posts about the coding capabilities of LLM models. Senko discusses whether this is a valid retort and how LLMs are and are not changing the nature of our work in more detail.

In any case, I agree that it is a strange thing to say in an industry where we've all had to go through one too many a painful live-coding interviews.

Why Is Everyone In Tech So Sad? (opens new window) by Aaron Horwath for NoemaMag

Also titled (thanks, A/B testing!): What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers?

I felt called out in this article what with my recent purchase of a learn-to-embroider kit and a growing concern of my future as a software engineer. I've been struggling to put my concern to words for my family and friends outside of the tech industry. Aaron found an eloquent way to describe our predicament.

Amongst other things, he philosophises about the nature of knowledge work within late-stage capitalism. I particularly liked his theory about there being two broad categories of knowledge workers:

The first are outcome-first workers. Their focus is on the business, on winning, on efficiency. Human needs and faults and emotions are an obstacle to be overcome.

The second group has an experience-first perspective. These workers love the messy middle. They value the journey. They want their organizations to perform well but as a natural consequence of collaboration, debate and shared struggle with people they actually like.

I wonder if this split explains why some knowledge workers are genuinely excited about LLMs and others are wary. I identify with the second group. I enjoy the problem-solving and explorative nature of my work. If LLMs can do the exploring and problem-solving on my behalf, where is the fun and challenge for me?

While this article started off very strongly, its ending fell flat for me. It felt like a forced "end on a positive note!" situation. Spoiler alert, but it is basically: "Work doesn't matter much anyway. Just focus on your hobbies." Uhm, but sir, unfortunately, my amateur Carcassone strategies ain't going to pay for my healthcare any time soon!