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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

#101

Post by mattigames »

edgineer wrote: post #63
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…

Doesn't this assume that the no-code tools won't be smart enough to understand the most probably correct course of action, and to look up information automatically and to ask questions to resolve ambiguities, like what a programmer does?

Sure, and soon after it will be smart know to understand the human desires that drived its creator to create no-code tools like itself in the first place, and soon after it will realize that humans should not be in charge, and then our days will be numbered.

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

#102

Post by Yoric »

pjmlp wrote: post #88
avereveard wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right now it will only solve problem someone else already knows the solution to, so not even at that. that said, I expect an ai assisted clerk to be order magnitude faster than not. it will be though for people at the bottom of the learning curve for a bit, but in half generation the educational offering will include how to work toghether with ai, massively improving worker productivity that is not to say it won't ha…

Having helped companies in traditional line of business to "streamline" their work processes, I am quite clear that many of the stuff that the West outsources into Asian countries will eventually be outsourced to AI. It is already so that in many industries there are hardly any traditional coder jobs on site, and having to explain every step to avoid it going off rails in offshoring assignments is hardly going to be…

> Maybe by GPT-20 only, but it will come, and then the roles of architects and business analists are the only ones left.

Agreed. Although... we actually don't know which jobs will be the ones left. For all we know, it will have taken over business analysis, too. Plus, from my experience working on architecture, I suspect that automatizing that part of my job won't be too hard.

For all we know, the only jobs left will be nurse and deep sea miner.

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

#103

Post by bitcharmer »

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…

> we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years

I always found that overwhelming majority of professional academic educators are particularly bad in anything that has to do with the practical side of their domain. That is especially true for software engineering.

University lecturers are very detached from our field and it shows in how badly fresh grads are prepared to do any dev work. For that reason I almost always ignore their projections.

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

#104

Post by Yoric »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #83

People will always want things cheaper and faster (value) - looking at AI as "chat" or textbox or AI autocomplete is wrong imo - companies will come that utilise AI to deliver things faster and cheaper - you quote $10k and 1 month, we will do it in $1k 1 week - first to go is low value difficult to automate work which is already offshored and commoditised (basic webdev, graphic design) - later the middle tier of work…

> There will always be need for top tier leetcoders. but barrier to entry will get much higher.

That's definitely a possibility. The barrier to entry won't be just in terms of how much you need to know, though, but also the fact that society as a whole might not require that many top tier leetcoders.

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

#105

Post by ookblah »

I agree with this mindset. There was a leap forward in productivity to accomplish your goals that modern IDEs/stacks brought and all the new tooling with it. What took massive teams before can now be done w/ a handful or even a single person. AI will just accelerate this type of work.

As elitist as this sounds, when I hear people being afraid of stuff like this it makes me feel like we are in the period where people are getting paid well (overpaid) just to do very mundane stuff, the bare minimum or content to never further develop their skills. If that is your mindset, then of course it feels threatening.

I would rather much play the role of conductor or an architect. There are times that I'm limited by my hands and mind and just grinding through variations of things I've done 100s of times before. If AI can fill that gap all the better. We will adapt.

I'm sure one day that won't even be necessary. We can probably worry then.

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

#106

Post by tarsinge »

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…

Delivered value sounds like consultant talk, but it’s as simple as wanting to make a game for people to play it. Or if you’re a carpenter caring about the roof you’re building instead of just cutting wood and hammering nails. Jobs exists to serve a purpose, otherwise it’s a hobby (which is fine). Coding as an expertise will still be needed, same as having an expertise in the methods of processing wood, but we might not need coders on the assembly line anymore that we need wood cutters there.

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

#107

Post by samwillis »

My university degree was in "Industrial Design and Technology" (~16years ago), an incredibly broad course covering everything (aesthetic design, design for manufacturing, material science, UX, UI, electronics, a little embedded C, ergonomics). But the main thing it taught was how to use these tools and skills to build a product that solved a problem.

AI is just another tool to enable us to build things that make people's lives better. Sure, it will supersede some older tools, but we aren't going to see it take all jobs away. People still need to plan and steer it to do what we want.

Power tools and shop automation didn't end the job of joiner/wood worker.

I'm not worried about AI taking jobs, I'm excited how we can use it to enable new classes to product that make our lives better.

Just as an artist will have to learn how to work with new paints, but this enables finding new ways of expressing themselves. We just need to learn new ways of "painting" with generative AI.

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

#108

Post by Yoric »

austin-cheney wrote: post #19
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people still need to eat and pay rent so maybe we should solve that before making who knows how many millions of people jobless.

Then they can find employment in industries facing dire shortages like education and nursing. If the only goal is to put unqualified people into seats for a paycheck then it doesn’t matter what they do for income.

I agree with the general idea.

However, retraining may become really hard. Especially if you're already, say, a 60 year old programmer (or business analyst, or executive assistant, etc.) who suddenly needs to become a (AI assisted) teacher or nurse.

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

#109

Post by matwood »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #83

People will always want things cheaper and faster (value) - looking at AI as "chat" or textbox or AI autocomplete is wrong imo - companies will come that utilise AI to deliver things faster and cheaper - you quote $10k and 1 month, we will do it in $1k 1 week - first to go is low value difficult to automate work which is already offshored and commoditised (basic webdev, graphic design) - later the middle tier of work…

On one hand you’re right, but you’re missing the other side - business requirements have always expanded with each innovation.

Basic web dev has been commoditized for awhile, but a company of any size requires much more than basic web dev.

Humanity has an uncanny ability to devour any excess capacity, and I see no reason it won’t do the same with things AI makes easier/lower cost.

What I do worry about is that AI will put further pressure on the lower skilled jobs keeping many people afloat. Call centers for example, likely will not exist very soon.

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

#110

Post by kabes »

I'm not at all concerned with AI. On the short to mid term it's making my life easier by relieving me of the boring parts of my job. It's pretty good at writing unit tests for example. But I don't see the current generation of AI making complete software architectures. However, even when it does get there or in the long term a new generation comes along that can do it, then I'm still not concerned. I have enough software I want to build to fill up a 100 lifetimes. It would mean I can finally build all that, which would mean more to me than a job where I'm the programmer.
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