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Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

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Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#921

Post by flustercan »

throw234234234 wrote: post #472
thegrim33 wrote: post #71

I don't worry about it, because: 1) I believe we need true AGI to replace developers. 2) I don't believe LLMs are currently AGI or that if we just feed them more compute during training that they'll magically become AGI. 3) Even if we did invent AGI soon and replace developers, I wouldn't even really care, because the invention of AGI would be such an insanely impactful, world changing, event that who knows what the…

1) Maybe. 2) I do see this, given the money poured into this cycle, as a potential possibility. It may not just be LLM's. To another comment you are betting against the whole capitalist systems, human ingenuity and billions/trillions? of dollars targeted at making SWE's redundant. 3) I think it can disrupt only knowledge jobs, and be some large time before it disrupts physical jobs. For SWE's this is the worst outcom…

> I think it can disrupt only knowledge jobs

What happens when a huge chunk of knowledge workers lose their job? Who is going to buy houses, roofs, cars, cabinets, furniture, amazon packages, etc. from all the the blue-collar workers?

What happens when all those former knowledge workers start flooding the job markets for cashiers and factory workers, or applying en masse to the limited spots in nursing schools or trade programs?

If GPTs take away knowledge work at any rate above "glacially slow" we will quickly see a collapse that affects every corner of the global economy.

At that point we just have to hope for a real revolution in terms of what it means to own the means of production.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#922

Post by ricardobeat »

mlinhares wrote: post #138
asdev wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you do realize that these so called "one-off" AI programs would need to be maintained? Most people paying for Saas are paying for the support/maintenance rather than features, which AI can't handle. No one will want to replace any Saas they depend on with a poorly generated variant that they want to maintain

Nah, you only write it and it runs by itself forever in the AI cloud. Sometimes I wonder if people saying this stuff have actually worked in development at all.

Thinking of it in terms of code is why the idea sounds ridiculous. AI won't make you a Django app and deploy to the cloud (though you can also do that), systems will be built based on pipelines and automation, integrations, just-in-time UI or conversational interfaces. Similar to the no-code platforms of today.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#923

Post by throw234234234 »

rozap wrote: post #579
boogieknite wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

im also expecting this outcome. my thoughts are that once devs are completely replaced by ml then were going to finally have to adapt society to raise the floor because we can no longer outcompete automation. im ready to embrace this, but it seems like there is no plan for mass retirement and were going to need it. if something as complicated as app and system dev is automated, pretty much anything can be. earnest qu…

That's around, give or take a few years, when I plan to retire. Don't care a whole lot what happens after that point :)

I think if you are either young or bound to retire in the next 5-10 years there's less worry. If you are young you can pivot easier (avoid the industry); if you are old you can just retire with enough wealth behind you.

Its the mid age people 35-45 yr olds that I think will be hit hardest by this if it eventuates. Usually at this point in life there's plenty of commitments (family, mortgage, whatever). The career may end before they are able to retire, but they are either too burdened with things; or ageism sets in making it hard to be adaptable.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#924

Post by paulcole »

whtsthmttrmn wrote: post #877
paulcole wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what I'm saying is of LLM generated code that is reviewed, what is the quality & correctness of the reviewed code? And it's resoundingly (easily >90%) crap. What makes you so sure that none of the resoundingly non-crap that you have reviewed was not produced by LLM? It’s like saying you only like homemade cookies not ones from the store. But you may be gleefully chowing down on cookies that you believe are homemade…

> What makes you so sure that none of the resoundingly non-crap that you have reviewed was not produced by LLM? From the post you're replying to: > Obviously we can't sample from unknown-authorship … nor am I; I'm sampling problems that I and others run through an LLM, and the output thereof.

Yes, believe it or not I’m able to read.

> I'm sampling problems that I and others run through an LLM

This is not what’s happening unless 100% of the problems they’ve sampled (even outside of this fun little exercise) have been run through an LLM.

They’re pretending like it doesn’t matter that they’re looking at untold numbers of other problems and are not aware whether those are LLM generated or not.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#925

Post by whtsthmttrmn »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #919
whtsthmttrmn wrote: post #907

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that startup is a great indication of things to come. Bound for long term growth.

Yap yap yap. Keep living in denial mate.

I'm not living in denial, I think LLMs are extremely useful and have huge potential. But people that are all "omg my startup did this and we reduced our devs by 150% so it must be the end-all tech!" are just as insufferable as the "nope the tech is bad and won't do anything at all" crowd.

And before you mention, the hyperbole is for effect, not as an exact representation.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#926

Post by rozap »

throw234234234 wrote: post #923
rozap wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's around, give or take a few years, when I plan to retire. Don't care a whole lot what happens after that point :)

I think if you are either young or bound to retire in the next 5-10 years there's less worry. If you are young you can pivot easier (avoid the industry); if you are old you can just retire with enough wealth behind you. Its the mid age people 35-45 yr olds that I think will be hit hardest by this if it eventuates. Usually at this point in life there's plenty of commitments (family, mortgage, whatever). The career may…

I think you can look at any cohort (except for the people already at retirement age) and see a way that they're screwed. I'm 34 and I agree that you're right, but the 22 year old fresh out of college with a CS degree might have just gotten a degree in a field that is going to be turned inside out, in an economy that might be confused as we adapt. It's just too big of a hypothetical change to say who will get the most screwed, imo.

And like the parent poster said - even if you were to avoid the industry, what would you pivot to? Anything else you might go into would be trivial to automate by that point.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#927

Post by Valord »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #767
janalsncm wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To replace all developers, we need AGI yes. To replace many developers? No. If one developer can do the same work as 5 could previously, unless the amount of work expands then 4 developers are going to be looking for a job. Therefore, unless you for some reason believe you will be in the shrinking portion that cannot be replaced I think the question deserves more attention than “nothing”.

That's a weird way to look at it. If one developer can do what 5 could do before, that doesn't mean I will be looking for a job, it means I will be doing 5 times more work.

5x throughput/output not 5x work

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#928

Post by rozap »

sungho_ wrote: post #646
rozap wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's around, give or take a few years, when I plan to retire. Don't care a whole lot what happens after that point :)

What if anti-aging technology is developed and you can live up to 1000 years?

I certainly am not in the 0.5% rich enough to be able to afford such a thing. If it does get developed (it won't in my lifetime), there's absolutely no way in hell it will be accessible to anyone but the ultra rich.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#929

Post by throw234234234 »

rozap wrote: post #926
throw234234234 wrote: post #923

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you are either young or bound to retire in the next 5-10 years there's less worry. If you are young you can pivot easier (avoid the industry); if you are old you can just retire with enough wealth behind you. Its the mid age people 35-45 yr olds that I think will be hit hardest by this if it eventuates. Usually at this point in life there's plenty of commitments (family, mortgage, whatever). The career may…

I think you can look at any cohort (except for the people already at retirement age) and see a way that they're screwed. I'm 34 and I agree that you're right, but the 22 year old fresh out of college with a CS degree might have just gotten a degree in a field that is going to be turned inside out, in an economy that might be confused as we adapt. It's just too big of a hypothetical change to say who will get the most…

I think trades and blue collar work where experience learnt (the moat) is in the physical realm (not math/theory/process but dexerity and hands-on knowledge), where iteration/brute force costs too much money/causes too much risk is the place to be. If I get that building wrong unlike software where I can just "rebuild" it costs a lot of money in the real world and has risk like say "environmental damage". It means rapid iteration and development just doesn't happen which limits the exponential growth of AI in that area compared to the Digital world. Sure - in a lifetime we may have robots, etc but it will be a LOT more expensive to get there, and happen a lot slower and people can adjust. LLM's being 90% right are just not good enough - the cost of failure is too high and accountability in failure needs to occur.

Those industries also more wisely IMO tend to be unionised, own their own business, and so have the incentive to keep their knowledge tight. Even with automation the customer (their business) and the supplier (them and their staff) are the same so the value transfer of AI will make their job easier but they will keep the value. All good things to slow down progress and keep some economic rent for yourself and your family. Slow change is a less stressful life.

The intellectual fields lose in an AI world long term; the strong and the renter class (capital/owners) win. That's what "Intelligence is a commodity" that many AI heads keep saying actually means. This opens up a lot of future dystopian views/risks that probably aren't worth the benefit IMO to the majority of people that aren't in the above classes of people (i.e. most people).

The problem with software in general is that it is quite difficult generally to be a "long term" founder at least in my opinion for most people which means most employment comes from large corps/govt's/etc where the supplier (the SWE) is different than the employer. Most ideas generally don't make it or last only briefly, and the ones that stick around usually benefit from dealing with scale - something generally only larger corps have with their ideas (there are exceptions in new fields, but then they become the next large corp and there isn't enough for everyone to do this).

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#930

Post by amrocha »

janalsncm wrote: post #684
amrocha wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a coworker who I suspect has been using LLMs to write most of his code for him. He wrote multiple PRs with thousands of lines of code over a month. Me and the other senior dev spent weeks reviewing these PRs. Here’s what we found: - The feature wasn’t built to spec, so even though it worked in general the details were all wrong - The code was sloppy and didn’t adhere to the repos guidelines - He couldn’t expla…

In the short term, I share your opinion. LLMs have automated the creation of slop that resembles code. In the long term, we SWEs (like other industries) have to own the fact that there’s a huge target on our backs, and aside from hubris there’s no law of nature or man preventing people smarter than us from building robots that do our jobs faster than us.

That’s called class consciousness, and I agree, and I think most people have already realized companies are not their friend after the last two years of layoffs.

But like I said, I’m not worried about it in the imminent future, and I have enough leverage to turn down any jobs that want me to work in that way.

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