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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

#201

Post by malfist »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #167
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…

> 10 steps negotiating with obscure Pune team that I need to chase 10x why are you doing the chasing? unless you're the project manager, comment "blocked by obscure pune team" on the ticket and move on

In my experience, PMs rarely do the chasing down for you. Most of them ask why you're still blocked and if you've done anything about it. Even if they do do something to chase them down, you're still on the hook for the deadlines.

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

#202

Post by creativeSlumber »

alternatex wrote: post #5

I wonder if the study includes the technical debt that more experienced developers had to tackle after the less experienced devs have contributed their AI-driven efforts. Because my personal experience has involved a lot of that in one of the companies listed in the study. Also, I've personally seen more interest in AI in devs that have little interest in technology, but a big interest in delivering. PMs love them th…

This. Even without AI, we have inexperienced developers rolling out something that "just works" without thinking about many of the scaling/availability issues. Then you have to spend 10x the time fixing those issues.

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

#203

Post by jcgrillo »

rongenre wrote: post #163
okwhateverdude wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not saying these tools don't have a place. But people are using it without understanding what it is putting out and not understanding the long term effects it will have on a code base. It is worse than that. We're all maintaining in our heads the mental sand castle that is the system the code base represents. The abuse of the autocoder erodes that sand castle because the intentions of the changes, which are crucial…

There needs to be a pattern for including AI-generated code, recording all the context which led to the generation.

Easy: exclude developers who try it. Learning--be it a new codebase, a new programming language, a new database--takes time. You're not going to be as productive until you learn how. That's fine! Cheating on your homework with an LLM should not be something we celebrate, though, because the learner will never become productive that way, and they won't understand the code they're submitting for review.

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

#204

Post by MBCook »

It lets people make more PRs. Woohoo. Who cares?

Does it increase the number of things that pass QA?

Do the things done with AI assistance have fewer bugs caught after QA?

Are they easier to extend or modify later? Or do they have rigid and inflexible designs?

A tool that can help turn developers into unknown quality code monkeys is not something I’m looking for. I’m looking for a tool that helps developers find bugs or design flaws in what they’re doing. Or maybe write well designed tests.

Just counting PRs doesn’t tell me anything useful. But it triggers my gut feeling that more code per unit time = lower average quality.

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

#205

Post by djbusby »

WalterBright wrote: post #192
goatlover wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The city of Seattle decided that gig delivery drivers needed to be protected. They passed a minimum wage for them. The income of gig drivers promptly dropped, as the rise in prices corresponded with a drop in customers. Who regulates the regulators?

Why did the prices for Uber/Lyft rise everywhere else too?

It wasn't Seattle laws that did that.

It's that those companies needed to go from Growth-Mode to Margin-Mode. They could no longer sell VC dollars for dimes.

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

#206

Post by jcgrillo »

andybak wrote: post #40
anonzzzies wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I've personally seen more interest in AI in devs that have little interest in technology, but a big interest in delivering. I found this too. But I also found the opposite, including here on HN; people who are interested in technology have almost an aversion against using AI. I personally love tech and I would and do write software for fun, but even that is objectively more fun for me with AI. It makes me far…

Yeah. There is a psychological benefit to using AI that I find very beneficial. A lot of tasks that I would have avoided or wasted time doing task avoidance on suddenly become tractable. I think Simon Willison said something similar.

Are you just working on personal projects or in a shared codebase with tens or hundreds of other devs? If the latter, how do you keep your AI generated content from turning the whole thing into an incomprehensible superfund site of tech debt? I've gotten a lot of mileage in my career so far by paying attention when something felt tedious or mundane, because that's a signal you need some combination of refactoring, tooling, or automation. If instead you just lean on an LLM to brute-force your way through, sure, that accomplishes the short term goal of shipping your agile sprint deliverable or whatever, but what of the long term cost?

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

#207

Post by numpad0 »

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.

Yeah this after all. Private corporations exist to make money. They minimize investment and maximize returns. They progressively suppress wages and inflate profits. Clever individual choices and self discounts merely create temporary competitive advantages against other poor laborers in the market.

If you manage to secure the bag that way and exit that class altogether, good for you, but that solves nothing for the rest. There's no be all end all threshold that everyone can just stay above and stay ahead of inflation.

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

#208

Post by djbusby »

malfist wrote: post #200
stuckkeys wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly. It is an onward trend. I have become so discouraged from this subject, that I am evaluating my career choices. Farming is a the safest bet for now.

Have you actually done farming? I grew up on a farm. It's no where close to a safe bet. It's capital intensive, high risk, hard work with low margins. Not at all like stardew.

Personal horticulture is fun and rewarding! Grow your own lettuce, tomato, etc.

BigAg is HARD WORK

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

#209

Post by kkyr »

baxtr wrote: post #176
Delk wrote: post #130

It's probably worth going a bit deeper into the paper before picking up conclusions. And I think the study could really do a bit of a better job of summarizing its results. The abstract and the conclusion only give a single percentage figure (26.08% increase in productivity, which probably has too many decimals) as the result. If you go a bit further, they give figures of 27 to 39 percent for juniors and 8 to 13 perc…

Re 26.08%: I immediately question any study (outside of physics etc) that provides two decimal places.

Why?

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

#210

Post by arexxbifs »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #143
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'…

With the progress LLM's having been making in the last two years, is it actually a bad bet to not want to really get into it? How many contemporary developers have no idea how to write machine code, when 50 years ago it was basically mandatory if you wanted to be able to write anything? Are LLM's just going to become another abstraction crutch turned abstraction solid pillar?

Abstraction is beneficial and profitable up to a certain point, after which upkeep gets too hard or expensive, and knowledge dwindles into a competency crisis - for various reasons. I'm not saying we are at that point yet, but it feels like we're closing in on it (and not just in software development). 50 years ago isn't even 50 years ago anymore, if you catch my drift: In 1974, the real king of the hill was COBOL - a very straight-forward abstraction.

I'm seeing a lot of confusion and frustration from beginner programmers when it comes to abstraction, because a lot of abstractions in use today just incur other kinds of complexity. At a glance, React for example can seem deceptively easy, but in truth it requires understanding of a lot of advanced concepts. And sure, a little knowledge can go a long way in E.G. web development, but to really write robust, performant code you have to know a lot about the browser it runs in, not unlike how great programmers of yesteryear had entire 8-bit machines mapped out in their heads.

Considering this, I'm not convinced the LLM crutch will ever solidify into a pillar of understanding and maintainable competence.

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