Devin: AI Software Engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#21

Post by bigyikes » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

If an AI was truly capable of replacing engineers en mass, the upside would hugely outweigh the downside.

Engineering muscle will be limited by chips instead of brains. Injecting millions of AI “engineers” into any economy would be a massive boon.

Many of us would be out of work, but if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus, this will still be a net-win for us all.

I think the top engineers will still be able to find a niche regardless - we get paid to solve problems, and there will always be human problems.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#22

Post by _factor » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

Or maybe the best engineers will be able to shine since they have the best ai management ability with the coding knowledge.

Let’s give all the shovelers spoons and live in the past where we can ignore the benefits technology can bring because we’re so afraid of what it means about the way we run society.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#23

Post by supafastcoder » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

Bjorkbat wrote: post #6

I mean, this might just be existential cope, but my first thought when looking at the Upwork demo posted on Twitter ( https://x.com/cognition_labs/status/1767548768734294113?s=20 ) was that it seemed a little bit suspicious. Namely, the client was asking for an unusually specific (for Upwork) ask. It was an almost perfect example of a job to be given to an AI agent for testing purposes.

To be fair, a lot of those Upwork job requests are now being written with AI…

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#24

Post by krainboltgreene » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

This post has the same energy as when a junior programmer talks to be about the "dead language called java".

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#25

Post by ak_111 » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:37 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

This is correct but somewhat unfair given that it applies to any technological project, since the purpose of technological project is to improve efficiency in some workflow, and improved efficiency means less demand for worker time.

I don't know which part of technology you work in but I can probably spin it as making possible for some manager to reduce staff.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#26

Post by thfuran » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:37 PM UTC

bigyikes wrote: post #21

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

If an AI was truly capable of replacing engineers en mass, the upside would hugely outweigh the downside. Engineering muscle will be limited by chips instead of brains. Injecting millions of AI “engineers” into any economy would be a massive boon. Many of us would be out of work, but if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus, this will still be a net-win for us all. I think the top engineers will still be able…

>if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus, this will still be a net-win for us all.

We can't.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#27

Post by bigyikes » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:38 PM UTC

IncreasePosts wrote: post #19

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

If AI can't make AI improvements that humans can, then it shouldn't be considered a very capable coder.

How many coders do you know that can make AI improvements? That ability is already reserved for the top humans. AI doesn’t even need to reach this bar to be better than the average coder.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#28

Post by BugsJustFindMe » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:38 PM UTC

bigyikes wrote: post #21

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

If an AI was truly capable of replacing engineers en mass, the upside would hugely outweigh the downside. Engineering muscle will be limited by chips instead of brains. Injecting millions of AI “engineers” into any economy would be a massive boon. Many of us would be out of work, but if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus, this will still be a net-win for us all. I think the top engineers will still be able…

> but if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus

History suggests that we cannot.

This is very much like saying "but if we can redistribute the wealth of all the billionaires". Like, uh huh, but that won't happen because, short of fear of murder, people winning a class war have no incentive to stop.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#29

Post by steve_adams_86 » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:38 PM UTC

siva7 wrote: post #17

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

I would have dismissed this thought a year ago but seeing how fast openai is moving, in 5 years those ai assistants will be what nowadays human junior/intermediate devs are.

The fact that these agents don't sleep is what will really kill human developers.

Even with my nearly 15 years of experience, I'm not sure I see companies justifying the cost of employing me soon when someone half as "capable"* as me can work relentlessly and tirelessly at churning out half-baked features.

*I doubt AI agents will be able to use bigger picture foresight and reasoning (especially reasoning as software pertains to human user experiences) to architect sane applications (as we understand them today, at least) but this likely won't matter in a vast majority of cases.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#30

Post by mym1990 » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 4:38 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

How is this any different than the industrial revolution ushering in a new age, or for that matter any technology that creates huge efficiencies in labor? The truth is that the future is still very uncertain, and while the easiest thing to do is yell "they took er jerbs" from the top of your lungs, maybe think about how to effectively move forward into the future.

There is a book called "Who Moved My Cheese?" and I wouldn't say its an amazing book, but the concept that not everything lasts forever, in relation to job security, is the takeaway.