False: Why Dwight Schrute Is a Great Engineer in this Age of LLMs
This might sound like a joke at first. But if you think about it, In these days, we tend to celebrate the Michael Scotts of the tech world - the enthusiastic early adopters, the ones who hype every new tool and move fast. But in the age of LLMs, I'd argue the engineer you actually need is Dwight Schrute.
Dwight Schrute would be an insufferable person to work with in the age of LLMs. He'd question every output, verify every claim, refuse to trust anything the model says without cross-referencing it himself, and probably have a 40-page threat model for your company chatbot. And honestly? That's exactly the kind of engineer I want on my team right now.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into each side of his character.
Dwight questions everything.
One of the good characteristics of Dwight is that he trusts verification over assumptions; he doesn’t take stuff at face value. If an LLM tells him information about something, he would verify it either with his own knowledge or his great research ability. You know who would take anything that an LLM gives without a second thought? Michael!
If you remember, Dwight has his famous word “False” when he fact-checks something. And that instinct is exactly what working with AI requires. LLMs are famously confident even when they’re completely wrong. The major labs are working into decrease the hallucinations in these LLMS but that problem is still not solved. For example, they’ll cite papers that don’t exist, write code with subtle bugs baked in, and summarize things from the sources you provide even in the times that they couldn’t open these sources.Every output deserves a “False” until you’ve verified it yourself.
Michael would screenshot the response and paste it straight into the proposal. Dwight would fact-check it first.
Dwight understands the fundamentals
Beside being a top employee at Dunder Mifflin, he has side hustles that he operates with deep knowledge. For example, the Schrute farm, that he operates with deep expertise in farming. He has always the urge to learn things in depth and to be competent in them. This is key now when dealing with mass production machines like LLMs. Understanding the fundamentals makes you able to better drive and use these tools. If you are good at your craft, these tools will help you magnify that; if you are bad, it will magnify that as well.
Dwight is skeptical of hype.
In an industry that is drowning in AI hype, with all of these headlines saying AI will replace everything, Dwight will not buy this without looking more into it. He would be the total opposite of Michael in this situation, who will believe any hype and act on it as soon as he hears it.
Dwight is always prepared (sometimes too seriously).
Dwight's threat assessments were absurd, but the instinct was right. In the LLM era, prompt injection, data leakage, and model misuse are real attack surfaces. Dwight would be prepared for that, just as he was prepared for all the worst-case scenarios that could happen in the office. He would understand that as his work and systems, and daily routines started to rely on a third-party AI API, he needs to be prepared. And using his knowledge and abilities, he would be able to carry on if these tools failed to operate or started to fall behind in quality.
He refuses to be replaced without a fight.
When his job was threatened, Dwight didn’t panic or give up. He made sure to double down on what made him unique and valuable. This is a great trait that we need to look deeply into these days. AI is automating the generic; if that is all you have, then you need to search for your Schrute Farm equivalent or your deep expertise and Dwight-level depth of experience.
The broader lesson Dwight teaches is that being genuinely, deeply competent in a rigorous way is what survives technological hype cycles and disruption. He’s not the coolest person in the room. But when things actually go wrong, everyone needs Dwight.