Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

sheshbabu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 434 posts

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#361

Post by margorczynski »

guappa wrote: post #357
margorczynski wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So there could never be a new provider or a new protocol because AI wouldn't be able to use them or create them On what do you base this? Is there some upper bound to the potential in AI reasoning that bounds it skill to creating anything more complex? I think it is on the contrary - it is humans who are bound by our biological and evolutionary hard limits, the machine is not.

Show me 2 AIs talking to each other and agreeing on a protocol and successfully both implementing it on their side in a way that it works then.

Where did I say that is the current state of its capabilities? My argument was about the future and the perspective on its skills.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#362

Post by Towaway69 »

quonn wrote: post #356
Towaway69 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a developer, I heartily agree with you. Being a human, I realise that I as a developer have put a lot of people out of a job. Those folks have had to adapt to that change. I guess now it's our time to adapt to change. At least it keeps me on my feet!

> I realise that I as a developer have put a lot of people out of a job. For most developers this will not be true. Most apps, websites, compilers, desktop software etc. will not have put anyone out of a job. I certainly never ever put someone out of a job. I made some peoples live easier, but their total working hours didn't shorten and they certainly did not change profession or were replaced. In fact the majority…

Having once worked on a project to improve some customer care software, I know that as a direct result of those improvements, people got fired.

I'm sure they all found new jobs but it did make me think about the consequence of my work.

Other projects involved making freemium games more addictive to suck people into paying. Of course everyone has a choice but playing on people's addictions to make money is an questionable morality.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#363

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

Aerbil313 wrote: post #352
goatlover wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that's going to happen. If it were, humans would have stopped playing chess. But not only do lots of people still play chess, people making a living playing chess. There are YT channels devoted to chess. The same thing will be true of almost all sports, lots of entertainment, and lots of occupations where people prefer human interaction. Bar tenders and servers could be automated away, but plenty like…

Chess is not something you make new discoveries in anymore, not something that results in a product that people pay for. Poor analogy.

Ahaha, no. Every time period has its own distinct style. you can tell the difference between Magnus, Kasparov, Capablanca etc. Lots of innovation in chess in fact, almost uninfluenced by machines.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#364

Post by withinboredom »

ta1243 wrote: post #290
withinboredom wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI, even in its current form can provide some interesting results. I wouldn’t underestimate an AI, but I think you might be underestimating the ingenuity of a bored human.

Humans aren't bored any more [0]. In the past the US the US had 250 million people who were bored. Today it has far more than than scrolling through instagram and tiktok, responding to reddit and hacker news, and generally not having time to be bored Maybe we'll start to evolve as a species to avoid that, but AI will be used to ensure we don't, optimising far faster than we can evolve to keep our attention [0] https:…

I’m bored all the time and I’m a human. Last I checked anyway.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#365

Post by octopusRex »

Oioioioiio wrote: post #129
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me a cynic (many have, especially on this topic) but I can't help but think that the majority of what AI will "successfully" replace in terms of craftsmanship is going to be stuff that would've never been produced the "correct" way if you will. It's going to be code created for and to suit the interests of the business major class. Just like AI art isn't really suitable for anything above hobby fun stuff like ge…

The question is not about what AI can do today but what we assume AI will be able to do tomorrow. All of what you wrote in your second paragraph will become something AI will be doing better and faster than you. We never had technology which can write code like this. I prompted ChatGPT to write a very basic java tool which renders an image from an url and makes it bigger on a click. It just did it. Its not hard to th…

In my workplace juniors were replaced years ago by a never ending round of offshore. As soon as we train our offshore, they are rotated somewhere else.

At least ai will stay put.

But most of us will be getting by on basic income. Or banging on the gates of robo guarded walls begging for food.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#366

Post by bamboozled »

63 wrote: post #58
adrianN wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to completely replace people with machines to destroy jobs. It suffices if you make people more effective so that fewer employees are needed.

The number of people/businesses that could use custom software if it were cheaper/easier to develop is nearly infinite. If software developers get more productive, demand will increase

There is just less people now too. Every single country seems to have a negative or break even birthrate. If we want to maintain the standard of living we have now, we need more efficient people.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#367

Post by defrost »

bamboozled wrote: post #366
63 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people/businesses that could use custom software if it were cheaper/easier to develop is nearly infinite. If software developers get more productive, demand will increase

There is just less people now too. Every single country seems to have a negative or break even birthrate. If we want to maintain the standard of living we have now, we need more efficient people.

> There is just less people now too.

Global population is still increasing and will most likely continue to do so until 2100.

> we need more efficient people.

It take less people to mine, process, and produce a billion tonne of steel today than it did in the 1970s.

Efficiency has steadily increased.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#368

Post by octopusRex »

godelski wrote: post #343
maxrecursion wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty muchy experience as well. AI is a fantastic helper, and it will make devs more productive, but it is not going to put all software devs out of work. Probably a tiny fraction of them at best. However, with recent grads flooding into IT for remote work and high pay, they could be hurting as AI reduces the need for entry level roles. Entry level was already saturated, and now it will be more saturated, wi…

Yeah I remember seeing someone try to measure it and they saw improvements in productivity on all experience levels but they found that it helped novices the most and experts only a little. But this is actually something I worry about. The best way to become an expert is to do things the hard way. I've talk a lot of people linux over the years and only 3 have really learned it. Every time I teach people I give them t…

But, will it matter?

:-(

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#369

Post by bamboozled »

defrost wrote: post #367
bamboozled wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is just less people now too. Every single country seems to have a negative or break even birthrate. If we want to maintain the standard of living we have now, we need more efficient people.

> There is just less people now too. Global population is still increasing and will most likely continue to do so until 2100. > we need more efficient people. It take less people to mine, process, and produce a billion tonne of steel today than it did in the 1970s. Efficiency has steadily increased.

It take less people to mine, process, and produce a billion tonne of steel today than it did in the 1970s.

Why do you think that is? Efficiently gains, which is what I said...

Global population can't just "go up", you need people who are educated in doing things and using tools efficiently. We also have an incredible amount of elderly people to take care of, that puts a huge burden on younger people.

Also don't forget how fast 100 years actually goes. It not a long time.

There is a limit to all of this though, there's absolutely no way 10 billion people colliding with the climate crisis will end well. We'd be better off with 6 billion efficient people than 10 billion starving and thirsty "workers".

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#370

Post by user_of_the_wek »

samatman wrote: post #190
CuriouslyC wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If chatbots aren't saving you time you need to refine what you choose to use them for. They're absolutely amazing at refactoring, producing documentation, adding comments, translating structured text files from one format to another, implementing well known algorithms in newer/niche languages where repository versions might not exist, etc. On the other hand, I've mostly stopped asking GPT4 to write quickstart code fo…

> you need to refine what you choose to use them for This is making assumptions about the work I do which don't happen to be valid. For example: > libraries that [...] have star counts in the high thousands at least Play little to no role in my work, and > I'll let it convert css/style objects/etc into tailwind Is something I simply don't have a use for. Clearly your mileage varies, and that's fine. What I've found i…

> > producing documentation

> Yikes. Not looking forward to that in the future.

Instead of documentation, I'm hoping more for "analysis". A helper that can take in a whole project (legacy or not) and tell you what it's supposed to be doing, and maybe point out areas for improvement.

Post reply on HN