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Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

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Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#71

Post by r_hoods_ghost »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #9
jackblemming wrote: post #2

If programmers can be replaced by AI, so can every other white collar job and humanity will look very different than what it is now. And I’ve been using ChatGPT and copilot and it’s a nice tool but nowhere near a replacement for knowing how to program.

This person is asking about career prospects 10-15 years out though. I'm sorry, but the landscape in then might be as alien to someone asking today, as todays would have been to someone asking 15 years ago (2008). What John said is correct, but personally I think he's underplaying how much people could be affected. Those "product skills" take years of grinding to really sharpen, and in 15 years only a few people migh…

2008 was extremely similar to today, although the webdev ecosystem wasn't quite as degenerate. I'd say you'd have to go back to the pre internet era to find a work environment that was fundamentally different.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#72

Post by pharmakom »

jstx1 wrote: post #65
onion2k wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had LLMs for about 5 years so far in non-academic research. If we're talking 10 years out that means we're looking at tech that's about 1/3 through its development to date. Take any mature-ish technology that you use today and compare the version 1/3 through its life to the version you use now. Look at Chrome 20 compare to Chrome 111, or React 14 compared to React 18, or an iPhone 4 compared to an iPhone 14, or…

You can't extrapolate from an arbitrary selection of technologies and assume that LLMs will have the same trajectory. They could be like the iPhone, or they could be like self-driving cars which have been a year away from replacing all drivers for 10 years now.

Self driving cars a few years ago seem particular close in hype level and apprehension to LLM today but progress on those has not matched expectations at all. What if GPT4 is the last major advance in LLMs for a really long time?

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#73

Post by pjmlp »

raincole wrote: post #26
pjmlp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now it is a kindergarten child at cognitive level, and like humans it will grow up and evolve, unless we nuke ourselves before it happens.

It's not kindergarten child at congitive level. It's a different kind of cognition than humans, if you can call it "cognition" at all.

Regardless, it is foolish to belive it won't improve.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#74

Post by pjmlp »

danparsonson wrote: post #15
pjmlp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now it is a kindergarten child at cognitive level, and like humans it will grow up and evolve, unless we nuke ourselves before it happens.

It's a word association machine, it's not even at kindergarten level when it comes to general cognition.

Regardless, it is foolish to belive it won't improve and take over tasks that in 2023 it still isn't able to do.

Who would guess, beyond Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that I can use my phone in 2023 to translate anything on a foreign restaurant in real time.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#75

Post by yazaddaruvala »

choppsv1 wrote: post #33

I love to code, as much as I loved math in college, but coding paid better and I'm pretty good at it. Those were my choices though b/c I want to do something I love. Sure, I keep my eye on the "Delivered Value" by making sure I engineer solutions to real problems, but I've never wanted to move out of coding and into managing engineers to build stuff. I want to code. It seems to me that the advice given here would be…

> It seems to me that the advice given here would be more applicable to someone who only coded long enough to move into engineering management -- anyway something about it bugs me and I don't think I'd follow it exclusively even if I was starting today

The advice here is clearly meant for someone who wants to invest in themselves to provide food and shelter for themselves and/or a family in the future. (Ie “doing all this hard work for nothing… AI will make my future job obsolete”).

The advice is spot on. Soft skills are hard to learn, harder to teach, and allow for flexibility with regards to the tool used.

> anyway something about it bugs me and I don't think I'd follow it exclusively even if I was starting today.

I’d be you like the money but don’t seem to want it as much as you want to solve deterministic puzzles (“not interested in becoming a manager” ie “not interested in maximizing career/salary growth potential).

What bugs you seems to be that you can’t yet see the puzzle left for you to work on once GPT-12 makes coding obsolete and software architecturing obsolete.

A long time ago I got some good feedback, “You were hired because you typically know the right answers and/or know how to find them. You were promoted because you also seem to know how to ask the right questions, and that is significantly harder.”

I’m relatively certain it’s analogous to Carmak’s advice.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#77

Post by pjmlp »

sneak wrote: post #35
pjmlp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now it is a kindergarten child at cognitive level, and like humans it will grow up and evolve, unless we nuke ourselves before it happens.

It has no cognition. Do not personify the algorithm that cannot think.

It doesn't need to think per se, just like robots at an Assembly line, or algorithms at HFT, it only needs to do a good enough job.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#79

Post by matwood »

raincole wrote: post #62
carlmr wrote: post #29

Looking back we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years, i.e. 2017. His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. I said it then and I will say it n…

> His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. It might sound really crazy and stupid today, but when SQL came out, it's advertised as one of "program-generating" languages and was su…

SQL was also meant to give a wider range of people access to data. The “business analyst” comes to mind. And, I think SQL was successful.

What it didn’t do was reduce the need for programmers, because the new SQL users always wanted more data to answer more complex questions.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#80

Post by lmarcos »

carlmr wrote: post #29

Looking back we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years, i.e. 2017. His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. I said it then and I will say it n…

> I'd be surprised if the next step is "Hi, I'm an ideas guy, please give me an app that does Uber, for bicycles, but better."

And even if AI is able to do that... Well, then anyone out there could become a UberCycle CEO. Which means: customer requirements will be much more complex by then and coming up with an entire product in 1h won't be enough anymore.

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