Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 205 posts

Re: Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

#41

Post by tmpz22 »

Nezteb wrote: post #38

I use ChatGPT (with the paid GPT-4 model) for certain things when I'm stuck. I use it to explain/rephrase concepts that I'm confused about. I occasionally generate some anonymized stuff like short code snippets, devops configs, boilerplate, and tests. Are people using it to pump out full apps and services or what? Anytime I've tried that the result quality is poor, even after lengthy explanations of what I'm asking i…

Im interested in specific use cases too. Anecdotally I only see people claim huge success or no success from these tools. Where are the dirty war stories? Its been out for about a year right?

Re: Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

#42

Post by Havoc »

> Humans work 9-5 (or some schedule), but ChatGPT is available always and works instantly.

So don't use it outside of work hours.

If you feel compelled to solve work problems outside of work hours that isn't a ChatGPT issue. It's just vanilla workaholism

Re: Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

#44

Post by coldtea »

dragonwriter wrote: post #24
tivert wrote: post #11

> 2. I no longer feel the need to hire juniors. This is a short-term positive and maybe a long-term negative. > A lot of stuff I used to delegate to fellow humans are now being delegated to ChatGPT. And I can get the results immediately and at any time I want. I agree that it cannot operate on its own. I still need to review and correct things. I have do that even when working with other humans. The only difference i…

> Then there will be a decision point: either the senior-level people who thought they were safe get replaced by a more-advanced model, or they don't and there's a future society-level shortage because the pipeline to produce more senior-level people has been shut down (like the OP is doing). Or, for every junior that isn't hired by a business that can't expand its portfolio to exploit greater productivity or can’t f…

>Or, for every junior that isn't hired by a business that can't expand its portfolio to exploit greater productivity or can’t figure out how to effectively use LLMs across the experience spectrum, two will be hired in shops that can do those things

And everybody also gets a pony! Win-win-win situation!

Previous "software dev productivity increases" happened as computing saturation itself increased from a hanful of mainframes to one in every office, then at every desk, then a few in every home, and later one in every hand. Now it's at 100% or close.

It also still required computer operators. LLM are not mere increased productivity of a human computer operator, but automation of productivity so that it can happen without an operator (or with much fewer).

Moreover, all this "increased productivity" still left wage stagnant for 40 years (with basic costs like housing, education, healthcare skyrocketing). It's not like more of it, in the same old corporatism context, bodes better for the future...

Re: Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

#45

Post by waffletower »

Animats wrote: post #22
JohnFen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The threat of these models isn't that they'll go all Skynet and kill everyone, it's that they'll cause a lot of economic devastation to people who make a living Yes. This is pretty much my only concern about these models, and I'm powerfully concerned about this. It's hard to see how this will lead to a good place. It seems more likely that this will lead to increased poverty and multiple socioeconomic crises. I am…

I've been asking for years, if we have all these computers, why do we need so many people in offices? Now we seem to have passed "peak office", with much help from the pandemic. If everything you do for money goes in and out over a wire, be very afraid.

From my vantage, short-term (3-5 year) fear seems unfounded. As a software engineer, I can clearly see what ChatGPT and its LLM ilk can and can't do that I can easily do myself. LLMs clearly accelerate my access to API documentation and provide excellent outline code. But hallucinations are omnipresent and can often necessitate additional iteration and rethinking of development approaches. I think the productivity boost due to LLM usage is smaller than many credit them for. The intensity of employment displacement fear comes from an illusion that LLMs have agency. AutoGPT is not much more than an experimental repo and there isn't a viable alternative yet. "WHEN YOU COMMAND AN LLM, YOU ARE THE AGENCY", LLMs are mere extensions. Don't sell yourself short, prompt crafting/engineering is where the agency lies and requires real knowledge and context to empower you effectively use them for successful software engineering.

Re: Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

#46

Post by Dalewyn »

tivert wrote: post #11

> 2. I no longer feel the need to hire juniors. This is a short-term positive and maybe a long-term negative. > A lot of stuff I used to delegate to fellow humans are now being delegated to ChatGPT. And I can get the results immediately and at any time I want. I agree that it cannot operate on its own. I still need to review and correct things. I have do that even when working with other humans. The only difference i…

>it's that they'll cause a lot of economic devastation to people who make a living through labor requiring skill and knowledge, especially future generations of skilled labor.

If a task can be completed satisfactorily by an automated computer program, was the task really "skilled labor"?

I ask this sincerely, because some of the occupations being replaced/evicted (eg: copywriting) were clearly given more skill value than they should have.

Re: Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

#48

Post by JohnFen »

waffletower wrote: post #45
Animats wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been asking for years, if we have all these computers, why do we need so many people in offices? Now we seem to have passed "peak office", with much help from the pandemic. If everything you do for money goes in and out over a wire, be very afraid.

From my vantage, short-term (3-5 year) fear seems unfounded. As a software engineer, I can clearly see what ChatGPT and its LLM ilk can and can't do that I can easily do myself. LLMs clearly accelerate my access to API documentation and provide excellent outline code. But hallucinations are omnipresent and can often necessitate additional iteration and rethinking of development approaches. I think the productivity bo…

> The intensity of employment displacement fear comes from an illusion that LLMs have agency.

I don't think so. My concerns have nothing to do with agency, anyway. Nor are my concerns limited to (or even primarily about) impact on software engineering specifically.

Even if LLMs perform worse, if using them will save companies money over employing people, then those people are gone.

Re: Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

#49

Post by FpUser »

tivert wrote: post #11

> 2. I no longer feel the need to hire juniors. This is a short-term positive and maybe a long-term negative. > A lot of stuff I used to delegate to fellow humans are now being delegated to ChatGPT. And I can get the results immediately and at any time I want. I agree that it cannot operate on its own. I still need to review and correct things. I have do that even when working with other humans. The only difference i…

I use ChatGPT very actively for programming among the other things and at no point feel threatened, rather empowered. No burnout either as I just work as usual. It just replaced Google Search and lots of typing.

Re: Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?

#50

Post by bloppe »

JohnFen wrote: post #14
tivert wrote: post #11

> 2. I no longer feel the need to hire juniors. This is a short-term positive and maybe a long-term negative. > A lot of stuff I used to delegate to fellow humans are now being delegated to ChatGPT. And I can get the results immediately and at any time I want. I agree that it cannot operate on its own. I still need to review and correct things. I have do that even when working with other humans. The only difference i…

> The threat of these models isn't that they'll go all Skynet and kill everyone, it's that they'll cause a lot of economic devastation to people who make a living Yes. This is pretty much my only concern about these models, and I'm powerfully concerned about this. It's hard to see how this will lead to a good place. It seems more likely that this will lead to increased poverty and multiple socioeconomic crises. I am…

> I am even more concerned that very few people are talking about this.

People have been talking about the threat of automation since the very beginning of the industrial revolution. It just never plays out nearly that badly, and short-term disruptions are always outweighed by long-term efficiency gains within ~5 years or so; even those who experience the worst career disruption tend to end up better off within that time frame.

I certainly would not like for my career to be disrupted for ~5 years, but the alternative would be worse.

Post reply on HN