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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

#721

Post by cpeterso »

parentheses wrote: post #719
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…

What you’re referring to here is “one shot” execution. The prompt given by managers is one that can be interpreted using context. This context can include current code, comms about what needs to be built, design assets available today, data, etc. Then the AI can ask questions to clarify what needs to be built. What’s great is that you could also have AIs write tests - for performance or correctness. Then future promp…

At least one person has already done this. Check out this Twitter thread where ChatGPT designs and builds a website to sell eco-friendly household products:

I gave GPT-4 a budget of $100 and told it to make as much money as possible. I'm acting as its human liaison, buying anything it says to. Do you think it'll be able to make smart investments and build an online business?

https://twitter.com/jacksonfall/status/1636107218859745286

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

#722

Post by Jupe »

qsort wrote: post #703
Jupe wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough - assuming steady state, but the acceleration is the curve I'm most curious about. The point I was alluding to above was that the prompts themselves will be recursively mined over time. Eventually, except for truly novel problems, the AI interpretation of the prompts will become more along the lines of "that's what I wanted". Some things to think about: What happens when an entire company's slack history…

This is the doomsday scenario again, though. In a world where we have the technology to go from two lines of prompt in a textbox to a complete app, no questions asked, then the same technology can run the entire company. It's kind of hard to believe transformers models are capable of this, given we are already starting to see diminishing returns, but if that's what you believe they are, then you believe they can effe…

> If you need to formally specify behavior, at any point in the pipeline, then we're back to square one: you just invented a programming language, and a very bad one at that.

But what if the "programming language" is not a general-purpose language, but a context/business domain specific language? One that is trained on the core business at hand? What if that "language" had access to all the same vocabulary, project history (both successful and unsuccessful), industry regulations, code bases from previous (perhaps similar) solutions, QC reports, etc.? What if the "business savvy" consumer of this AI can phrase things succinctly in a fashion that the AI can translate into working code?

I don't see it as a stretch "down the road." Is it possible today? Probably not. Is it possible in 5-10 years time, I definitely think so.

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

#723

Post by eldritch_4ier »

sarchertech wrote: post #424
eldritch_4ier wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe? A founders job is basically “execute the path to capitalize on the opportunity”. So you have to figure out the opportunity, and execute towards it by whatever means necessary - that’s a lot of jobs and hats. As long as there’s a human required to make a business possible, founders will exist. Get rid of software engineering, marketing, fundraising, identifying the opportunity, sales, customer support, etc then…

> But at that point every other human job is automated too. I’ve heard that exact same argument for software engineers. As an outside observer it sounds like you’ve switched from SE to founder, so you’re failing to apply the same standards because you (consciously or not) want to defend your current position.

How do they apply to software engineers exactly? The founder “job” is literally “do anything that needs doing in the business”. Now the job of a CEO or CTO is much more narrowly defined and I can see that seeing automation sooner, but the founder role is kinda unique in that it’s just “do everything and if you’re successful you should be constantly replacing your job with an employee”.

Founders are the jobs trying their hardest to replace themselves (with hires and go can do the work better) and yet still always find more to do. That’s very unique

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

#724

Post by vlovich123 »

gumballindie wrote: post #64
vlovich123 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t listen to the guy above. Terrible advice likely colored by an unhappy career just like don’t listen to me because it works be followed by barring generally happy with mine. > and you have to waste your life away sitting in an office chasing tickets. Nothing engineery about it. It’s modern day assembly line work. Every job I’ve literally done I’ve set my own direction. Sure, there’s some negotiation because ulti…

That’s quite an assumption about my career. You may be shocked by my statement and in denial but that doesnt change my prediction.

It’s quite a claim to make that software engineering isn’t lucrative. Sure, if you play in local markets it’s not. But then again, no local market job really is. So as far as day-to-day work goes, software engineering at the local level is fine. At the global level, if you think you can compete in the top tech companies, you’re going to probably find a very well-rewarded career. It’s generally very hard to find something that’s paying you the salary of a US doctor or lawyer with just an undergraduate degree. Fears about AI feel overblown.

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

#725

Post by henry2023 »

wizofaus wrote: post #244
TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am actually finding amusing that managers will generate 100k lines project with AI and then will start figuring out that it does not work as they want to. Then they figured out actual developers are needed to fix it, either in a very strict way telling AI what should happen (i.e. higher level programming) or directly fixing code generated by AI.

You're assuming that the AI is even generating anything that will make sense to a human. It seems inevitable we'll reach the point that for SaaS the AI will do everything directly based some internal model it has of what it believes the requirements are (e.g. it will be capable of acting just like a live web server), whereas for desktop and mobile apps, while that paradigm still remains relevant, it will generate the…

At least permabans are going to be more fun

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

#726

Post by linsomniac »

adnmcq999 wrote: post #626
linsomniac wrote: post #584

30 years ago I got tired of writing the same code over and over, so I went looking for something to cut out the repetition. Around a decade later I got tired of rewriting libraries or programs to make them exactly fit my needs. I used to really enjoy just coding for the sake of coding. But I started to value my time much more. I called this phase "losing my immortality". Any code that ChatGPT can write, I don't want…

well that’s weirdly graphic

You are referring to "lead him down a blind alley and knife him".

ChatGPT has answered some specific code questions with code that is not only wrong, but horribly wrong. Things like presenting anti-patterns as the answer, halucinating APIs that don't exist and suggesting code using them, or code that is subtly wrong. These sorts of things go well beyond leading you down a dark alley, hence my addition.

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

#727

Post by lyleVanf »

I think something that a lot of people might be overlooking is just how much this might devalue software as individual products. How many technologies do we have now that might become irrelevant once LLMs become more mainstream? How can any company keep a moat around their product if anyone can simply generate that same function (or similar) with a few prompts? The only reason any software is particularly valuable is because of the difficulty that comes with making it.

An example that come to mind is Jira, why have verbose task management software when bespoke task management systems become even more viable for individual companies? Or better yet, given the need for individual cogs decreasing, why have that at all?

This also extends to the creation of any sort of new business, perhaps there are patents on specific products and brands (which might be the saving grace of many large orgs) but outside of niche applications and hardware access I can't see how someone can reasonably gain a leg up in such an environment.

edit: This is more speculative, but what if software actually becomes more of a process of molding a large language model to consistently behave in a certain way? Why have some code that manages your back-end functionality when for a large some of applications all that is really occurring is text manipulation with some standardized rules. If those rules can be quantified, and consistency can be expected, the only "coding" that needs to be done is prompting the model.

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

#728

Post by awesomegoat_com »

samtho wrote: post #583
ghaff wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution Architect is another common title. As someone else mentioned, Developer Relations is at least adjacent though that tends to be less salesy and, depending on the role/company, may be more focused on community aspects than building demos and the like. In any case, at software companies, there are definitely customer-facing roles that are more technical though they may not involve a lot of direct coding. For no…

I would say an SA (Solution Architect) is very different from an SE (Sales Engineer) in one fundamental way: the SA is focused on delivering value post-contract and the SE is focused on making sure the org is able deliver the value promised by working with sales in the pre-contract phase. In some smaller companies or organization within a company, I can see these roles being performed by the same person but in genera…

SA people that I have met so far (30+) can architect and more importantly talk about and market the solution. But the execution is often times lacking. And that is solely because the execution is less important. (If the contract is big enough SA can always lean on product engineers or hire contractors to execute).

Being the engineering contractor to SA organization is daunting to a programmer, but rather rewarding.

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

#729

Post by awesomegoat_com »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #589
Simran-B wrote: post #396

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.

I've been thinking that AI managers is the real killer app for AI. There are challenges, but none seem insurmountable even with the present base tech.

Indeed. And ChatGPT already can babysit burnout engineers.

(which has been major time sink of engineering managers that I know).

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

#730

Post by soraki_soladead »

roflyear wrote: post #713
soraki_soladead wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are not intelligent. Citation needed. Numerous actual citations have demonstrated hallmarks of intelligence for years. Tool use. Comprehension and generalization of grammars. World modeling with spatial reasoning through language. Many of these are readily testable in GPT. Many people have… and I dare say that LLMs reading comprehension, problem solving and reasoning skills do surpass that of many actual human…

Citation needed for you!

Sure. A few below but far from exhaustive:

- https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.07528 - https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.10403 - https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.11903 - https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.13382

There are also literally hundreds of articles and tweet threads about it. Moreover, as I said, you can test many of my claims above directly using readily available LLMs.

GP has a much harder defense. They have to prove that despite all of these capabilities that LLMs are not intelligent. That the mechanisms by which humans possess intelligence is fundamentally distinct from a computer’s ability to exhibit the same behaviors so much that it invalidates any claim that LLMs exhibit intelligence.

Intelligence: “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills”. It is difficult to argue that modern LLMs cannot do this. At best we can quibble about the meaning of individual words like “acquire”, “apply”, “knowledge”, and “skills”. That’s a significant goal post shift from even a year ago.

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