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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

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So exact in fact that they will need to specify a program in a click and drag interface, or in human language. This. I started programming in Machine Code, where the "editor" was a pad of graph paper. I've watched management- and business-focused people sneer at us geeks for my entire career, and watched them drool over the thought of finally getting rid of us. Hasn't happened yet. > I'd be surprised if the next st…

Tell me more about this cheese straightener… that sounds amazing. Where do I prepay?

I wonder what straightening it provides.

Like when the brick of cheese comes out of the freezer with an obvious bend?

Or like when I don’t make a nice square cut and my sandwich is cheesier in some spots than others?

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

#552
AI will make some CS jobs obsolete, but it will do so at a very slow pace. The main reason being that companies suck at structuring information in a way AI could parse it. Whenever I work on some feature I have to dig into some chaotic Notion page and a bunch of unlinked tickets written in broken English.

There's no way an AI could do my job because it requires a deep understanding of the human psyche, i.e. figuring out what the guy that wrote it actually wants me to do, possibly by discussing it with him.

I'm pretty sure most engineers go through the same thing every day. As long as humans suck at describing tasks, AI won't be able to make them obsolete.

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

#553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until managers realize that their jobs are a lot easier to automate away with AI than the jobs of software developers.

What makes you think that’s true?

if GPT or copilot make developer 5-50x more productive then you need just 2 good programmers instead of team of 10-100 person, so out of window goes all formalized agile processes, safes etc so you don't need anymore those managers who are doing communicating, process planning and other big business stuff. Of course this will also affect for developers but I bet less because there is huge need for software developers and mid-size business did not have money to hire team huge team of developers but this will change when you need only two people instead of 40.

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

#554
post #465

First off, there's a lot of people shooting off their mouths - ignore anyone who hasn't used ChatGPT extensively: it takes some training to learn to use it. Several senior developer friends have been using ChatGPT quite a bit and it seems to work well in lots of places: - isolated algorithms and fiddly bits - it writes complex SQL statements in seconds, for example. LLMs should makes quick work of fussy config files.…

Like you I found that ChatGPT is not really all that great at coding, but great when you ask it to do very specific grunt work. I'm working on a new database and one thing I found it super useful for is generating test data, I would just tell it: "here's the CREATE TABLE statement, create 50 rows of test data off of it, with all of these specifications: this has to be this, that can only be 1 or 2, yada yada yada. >…

Gpt4 is on another level but still very far from being able to do work on anything larger than a medium sized class

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

#555
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…

The thing is: - gpt doesn't need you to be exact - one day gpt will be able to ASK YOU question to refine what you need It may take years, but at some point, it will be able to do 80% of my job. Not a big deal though, cause people will still hire me to do the remaining 20%, and pay me even more money because not a lot of devs will be able to do it.

GPT can ask you follow up questions. Just tell it that it's job is to interview you. It will do it. If you have trouble try the Playground or API or GPT-4. But ChatGPT will do it if you tell it that's what it's supposed to do.

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

#557
The title for this link seems way off. Carmack did not say he was concerned, some kid said they were concerned.

If anything Carmack’s response was unconcerned, saying how CS jobs may change.

@dang could we maybe change to “Carmack responds to student concerned AI will make CS jobs obsolete”?

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

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell ChatGPT it's a product manager overseeing engineers and providing executive summaries. Create a system that feeds executive emails inquiring about project statuses into ChatGPT and emails the developers asking for updates. Developers reply with jargon-heavy details about tickets for next milestone, ChatGPT writes an executive summary that eliminates jargon and sends to executives. Not the full job, but it can pr…

This is a project managers job not a engineering managers job.

OP said “product manager” which is also wrong. Funny how these three very different roles constantly get mixed up by smart engineers.

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

#559
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally what the language model is. It might correctly generate a solution to a "novel" question/problem that is sufficiently close to one with an existing, known answer. But then again it might not. And in software development, it's going to take someone who is knowledgeable to tell the difference. I think software engineering is going to look very different in a few years, and likely be a smaller field wit…

"One of the biggest differences that we saw from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4 was this emergent ability to reason better," Mira Murati, OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer, told ABC News." https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/openai-ceo-sam-altman-ai-r... I neither know how LLMs work nor how our brains work. And I don't know what could be parallel between these two. For my very very limited knowledge of how properties can emerge from…

It's 100% doing reasoning.

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

#560
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…

There exist many no-code tools that do exactly what you say is impossible. Do I program when I retouch photos in Photoshop? It's a no-code environment that an artist can easily learn and use with no programmers needed. What's new here is that you DO NOT NEED TO BE EXACT with AI. AI knows human nature and human speech and it can infer what you say and what you need, if you're approximately close, and then make the exa…

> There exist many no-code tools that do exactly what you say is impossible.

> Do I program when I retouch photos in Photoshop? It's a no-code environment that an artist can easily learn and use with no programmers needed.

They're obviously not talking about all GUIs being impossible. The difference between Photoshop and a no code tool like what OP was referring to is that Photoshop doesn't attempt to be Turing complete.

> Does it matter whether programmers are 99% unemployed or 100%? Same deal.

AI completely replacing programmers is pretty much the definition of AGI. There's no point in worrying about your own joblessness in that scenario because the entire economy will either collapse or be transformed so as to be unrecognizable.

Until that point, I'm not personally worried about any efficiency gains putting me out of a job.

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