If you haven’t used it professionally, LLMs can and do provide huge help. Making this a specially all or nothing argument only highlights a knowledge and experience gap on the part of someone making that argument.

Buuuuut, only an idiot asks for anything better than a starting point or a check of existing work. People relying on it to produce whole cloth work is for hobbyists and sloppers that don’t care or know any better.

You ask why they need to use LLMs at all, and they host their own, Lumo. What clear, financially solid argument can you make that LLMs are an objective net negative to every company? If they see benefits from a headstart on coding and ability to test their security, why demand they take that away when no human code is 100% perfect anyway?

I fear you may misunderstand their goal here- direct quote:

“We need people who can translate AI’s capabilities into better products, stronger execution, and new ways of working — and who approach this change with curiosity, judgment, and urgency,” the email reads.

They specifically want to “weed out” the ones who ARE NOT using AI