I think if you understand the fundamentals of how computers work and can debug anything to figure out what is causing a problem you will be valuable for a long time. most people either don't have the requisite knowledge to do this, or just simply lack the drive and curiosity to figure out weird bugs. also, there are senior engineers with 10+ years exp. at the company that I work at that don't bother to google or do any real debugging before asking a question in slack. don't be one of those people.
Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
31–39 of 39 posts
Re: Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
#32It may sound banal but the more i live the more i see it’s true.
Learning basics never gets old.
Philosophy, logic, seeking truth, foundations of math, of basic nature laws etc.
Whatever skills gonna be needed in future- you’ll adapt, if you’re smart and flexible.
And only seeking the truth keeps you in shape, exploring basics helps you get smarter.
Re: Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
#33Building something the right way doesn’t matter if you don’t build the right thing. Requirements are never fully specified and it is your job to use good judgment on the ambiguous parts. Figure out what business problem you are being asked to solve and recommend solutions accordingly. “If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse” - Henry Ford
Also, you most likely think your job is what’s in the job description. That is not true. Unless you are in a field where output is super easy to measure (e.g., professional golf) your job is to make life easier for your boss and other people above you at your company.
Re: Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
#34In 45 years? I predict the skills you'll need then will include: foraging, scavenging, hacking, repurposing old junk into shelter and transportation, hydroponics, stealing electricity, small scale farming, digging, ammo reloading, evading AI, creating improvised explosive devices, smuggling, ICE breaking, soldering, welding, firearms maintenance, broadcasting pirate radio and television, etc.
I kinda agree given the developing situation.
Re: Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
#35In 45 years? I predict the skills you'll need then will include: foraging, scavenging, hacking, repurposing old junk into shelter and transportation, hydroponics, stealing electricity, small scale farming, digging, ammo reloading, evading AI, creating improvised explosive devices, smuggling, ICE breaking, soldering, welding, firearms maintenance, broadcasting pirate radio and television, etc.
Either that or just know how to enjoy yourself, since our benevolent AI God has got life covered.
Re: Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
#36In 45 years? I predict the skills you'll need then will include: foraging, scavenging, hacking, repurposing old junk into shelter and transportation, hydroponics, stealing electricity, small scale farming, digging, ammo reloading, evading AI, creating improvised explosive devices, smuggling, ICE breaking, soldering, welding, firearms maintenance, broadcasting pirate radio and television, etc.
You forgot, fire making, water filtration (essential) and fishing (protein, fat, vitamins).
How can you do all the stuff without energy? Are you running on sunlight, or do you do nuclear fission inside your body?
Re: Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
#37It may sound banal but the more i live the more i see it’s true. Learning basics never gets old. Philosophy, logic, seeking truth, foundations of math, of basic nature laws etc. Whatever skills gonna be needed in future- you’ll adapt, if you’re smart and flexible. And only seeking the truth keeps you in shape, exploring basics helps you get smarter.
Who knows what the future will bring (will we ever get AGI)?
Needless to say, fundamentals, that is, math (geometry, algebra, and calculus) and physics (mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics).
Some basic algorithms/techniques such as backpropagation, triangle ray tracing and rasterization, and some fundamental awareness that you can compute anything given 5-6 instructions (Turing completeness). Knowing how to program in a language like Python might suffice.
Then there are skills that are essential to maintain your life, such as fire making, fishing, and water filtration. You need to get energy someway.
See also Maslow's pyramid.
Re: Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
#38Writing has proven to be surprisingly resistant to Ai. Or re-writing people's AI-generated papers to sound more human or readable. AI-generated writing has a certain unmistakable clunkiness that tends to give it away.
Give it another year at maximum. Claude already sounds a lot less robotic than GPT4, and I heard of some smaller models sounding quite natural.
Re: Ask HN: What skills are worth learning long-term against AI?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Performance, security, and written communication. AIs are good at all of these. Performance & security is largely a knowledge problem which AIs are very good at. And LLMs are great at written communication.
If that is true then why bother hiring expensive humans to write slow, insecure, inferior software products at all. Replace them all.
That's the plan everybody is working on, yes