> I think there are a ton of people just pulling the lever over and over, instead of stepping back and considering how they should pull the lever

There are deeper considerations like why pull the lever, or is it the correct lever? So many api usages is either seeing someone using a forklift to go the gym (bypassing the point), using it to lift a cereal box (overpowered), or using it to do watchmaking (very much the wrong tool).

Programming languages are languages, yes. But we only use them for two reasons. They can be mapped down to hardware ISA and they’re human shaped. The computer doesn’t care about the wrong formula as long as they can compute it. So it falls on us to ensure that the correct formula is being computed. And a lot of AI proponents is trying to get rid of that part.