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Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

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Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#181

Post by tensor »

GoToRO wrote: post #11

For me AI just brought back documentation. All new frameworks lack documentation big time. The last good one for me was a DOS book! I don't think newer developers even have an idea of what good documentation looks like. Even so, AI will propose different things at different times and you still need an experienced developer to make the call. In the end it replaces documentation and typing.

Yes, it can both help you write it but also, if you start with the documentation, e.g. the comment describing what function does, AI becomes orders of magnitude better and actually helping write the function, so it actually forces developers to better document their code!

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#182

Post by matrix2003 »

trashtester wrote: post #178
extr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it's often a suboptimal career move from an individual perspective. By branding yourself as a "FinTech Developer" or whatever instead of just a "Developer" you're narrowing your possible job options for questionable benefit in terms of TC and skills growth. This isn't always the case and of course if you spend 20 years in one domain maybe you can brand yourself as an expert there and pull high $/hr consu…

> I did ML at insurance companies and got branded as an insurance ML guy. If you're an "ML insurance guy" outside of the US, it may be quite lucrative compared to other developers. It's really only in the US (and maybe China) that pure developers are demanding $200k+ salaries. In most places in Europe, even $100k is considered a high salary, and if you can provide value directly to the business, it will add a lot to…

> In most places in Europe, even $100k is considered a high salary

I think it's worth adding here that US developers can have a much higher burden for things like health insurance. My child broke his arm this year, and we hit our very high deductible.

I would like to see numbers factoring in things like public transportation, health insurance, etc., because I personally feel like EU vs US developers are a lot closer in quality of life after all the deductions.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#184

Post by wrink »

29athrowaway wrote: post #61

The study doesn't cover the long term effects of using generative AI on a project, which is the deskilling of your workforce. Because development will become an auction-like activity where the one that accepts more suggestions wins.

I think this is right. Just have to jump ship before it all explodes and people wonder what happened

Similar to gaming the stock price for a couple quarters as C-level, but now with more incentive for this sort of behavior at IC level

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#185

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

goatlover wrote: post #148
yifanl wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're cutting headcount because they have no conception of how to make a good product, so reducing costs is the only of making the bottom line go up. That's across the board, from the startups whose business plan is to be acquired at all costs, to the giant tech companies, whose business plan is to get monopoly power first, then figure out how to extract money later.

Failures of capitalism that probably need regulation. If the middle class and workers are to be protected.

Would UBI and LVT do the trick? I'm okay with minimum wages on the idea that a democratic government is the biggest possible de facto labor union, but in general I don't want the government making too many rules about how you can hire and fire people

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#186

Post by zquzra »

neilv wrote: post #78
choilive wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its been a while since my undergrad (>10 yrs) but many of my peers were majoring in CS or EE/CE because of the money, at the time I thought it was a bit depressing as well. With a few more years under my belt I realized theres nothing wrong with doing good work and providing yourself/your family a decent living. Not everyone needs the passion in their field to become among the best or become a "10x"er to contribute.…

Yeah, I think that the quality of work (skill + conscientiousness), and the motivation for doing the work, are two separate things. Off-the-cuff, three groups: 1. There are people who are motivated by having a solid income, yet they take the professionalism seriously, and do skilled rock-solid work, 9-5. I'd be happy to work with these people. 2. There are other people who are motivated by having a solid or more-than…

#3 is the old school hacker, "a high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die" :-)

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#187

Post by Kiro »

trashtester wrote: post #175
Kiro wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that clear cut. I personally think the AI often delivers a better solution than the one I had in mind. It always contains a lot more safe guards against edge cases and other "boring" stuff that the AI has no problem adding but others find tedious.

If you're building a code base where AI is delivering on the the details of it, it's generally a bad thing if the code provided by AI provide safeguards WITHIN your code base. Those kinds of safeguards should instead be part of the framework you're using. If you need to prevent SQL injection, you need to make sure that all access to the SQL type database pass through a layer that prevents that. If you are worried abo…

Sounds like we're talking about different kind of safeguards. I mean stuff like a character in a game ending up in a broken case due to something that is theoretically possible but very unlikely or where the consequence is not worth the effort. An AI has no problem taking those into account and write tedious safeguards, while I skip it.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#188

Post by pphysch »

arexxbifs wrote: post #53

My hunch - it's just a hunch - is that LLM-assisted coding is detrimental to one's growth as a developer. I'm fairly certain it can only boost productivity to a certain level - one which may be tedium for more senior developers, but formative for juniors. My experience is that the LLM isn't just used for "boilerplate" code, but rather called into action when a junior developer is faced with a fairly common task they'…

It all depends of one is using it scientifically, i.e. having a hypothesis for the generated code before it exists, so that you can evaluate it.

When used scientifically, coding copilots boost productivity AND skills.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#189

Post by WalterBright »

extr wrote: post #174
swader999 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 100%. It's rare to find anyone that wants to learn a complex biz domain.

It's because it's often a suboptimal career move from an individual perspective. By branding yourself as a "FinTech Developer" or whatever instead of just a "Developer" you're narrowing your possible job options for questionable benefit in terms of TC and skills growth. This isn't always the case and of course if you spend 20 years in one domain maybe you can brand yourself as an expert there and pull high $/hr consu…

> got branded as an insurance ML guy

I got branded as a compiler guy. My salary is $0.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#190

Post by pojzon »

godelski wrote: post #123
jajko wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So its not going to stop. Typical C-suite who holds real power has absolutely 0 clue about IT complexity, we are overpriced janitors to them. Their fault, their blame, but they are probably long gone when these mistakes manifest fully. In my banking corp, in past 13 years I've seen massive rise of complexity, coupled with absolutely madly done bureaucracy increase. I still could do all stuff that is required but - I…

- my laundry app (that I must use) takes minutes to load, doesn't cache my last used laundry room, and the list of rooms isn't even fucking sorted (literally: room 3, room 7, room 1, room 2, ...) - my AC's app takes 45 s to load even if I just used it, because it needs to connect. Worse, I'll bring the temp down in my house and in the evening raise it, but it'll come on even when 5F below my target value, staying on…

Those are all small symptoms of late stage capitalism and closing on end of an era.

Like Rome, corruption, laziness and barbarians will tear it all down.

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