I am dipping my toes into doing SVG with LLM assistance and I must still be prompting it wrong.

SVG is adjacent to HTML+CSS and arguably better documented, however, I find that RTFM is working out for me, rather than using LLM help. I am not confident that I can prompt correctly, however, I am able to learn the SVG specification and build my own working code for my own reference and learning.

I have specific goals and it is possible for me to chip away the old-fashioned way relying on just myself and the manual. LLM code that requires massive refectoring before trying to get it to work is always a longer process, more like an extra step, it also takes me away from understanding my code.

Part of the problem is that a lot of SVG is just churned out from an image editing application, and full of debris. I want lean code, which is a different thing. I am sure that there is the same problem with HTML + CSS, you could end up with anything from tables to grid layout to centre that div with a billion class tags added to it, because nobody styles elements, scopes their CSS or writes HTML with the content elements such as 'aside', 'section', 'details' and so on.

Again, nobody reads the HTML5 specification, to structure documents and let the styling work with the document structure in a concise manner.

I wish to be proven wrong, and hope that comes soon, however, for now, I think these 'incredible' tools wear a bit thin if you are wanting more than 'slop' that might have a few inspirational details to it.

I would like to see an AI that can do SVG or HTML/CSS with only the knowledge of the specifications, not a million badly voted up StackOverflow/Reddit solutions. I am not going to need a data centre the size of Manhattan to host an AI that does just this. I am also unlikely to contribute to such a solution.

Being an 'outlier', I fully expect mild-slop to take over and for Anthropic/OpenAI to linger on due to lots of people using them because who cares about underlying code? Nobody has, thus far, with HTML, all of it is spewed out bloated sea-of-div nonsense.

We can expect business as usual, and the trillion-dollar LLMs to continue just fine, due to the sheer resilience of modern day capitalism and the sheer number of users okay with mediocrity. They might take a haircut on valuations, but we have been here before.

The 4G auction sell-offs resulted in a bidding war with astronomical windfalls for many a government, with questions asked at the time regarding the viability of mobile telephony. It all worked out.

I am trying my best 'steel man' arguments here, even if LLMs are not my chosen path. I honestly wish those that take that route all the best, however, there will still be more 'artistic' niches where LLM won't cut it.

Replacing homepage demo media with looping HTML and CSS