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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

#211

Post by jcgrillo »

sgarland wrote: post #27
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…

> Also, I've personally seen more interest in AI in devs that have little interest in technology, but a big interest in delivering. Thank you, this says what I have been struggling to describe. The day I lost part of my soul was when I asked a dev if I could give them feedback on a DB schema, they said yes, and then cut me off a few minutes in with, “yeah, I don’t really care [about X].” You don’t care? I’m telling y…

In a similar vein, some days I feel like a human link generator into e.g. postgres or kafka documentation. When docs are that clear, refined, and just damn good but it seems like nobody is willing to actually read them closely enough to "get it" it's just a very depressing and demotivating experience. If I could never again have to explain what a transaction isolation level is or why calling kafka a "queue" makes no sense at all I'd probably live an extra decade.

At the root of it, there's a profound arrogance in putting someone else in a position where they are compelled to tell you you're wrong[1]. Curious, careful people don't do this very often because they are aware of the limits of their knowledge and when they don't know something they go find it out. Unfortunately this is surprisingly rare.

[1] to be clear, I'm speaking here as someone who has been guilty of this before, now regrets it, and hopes to never do it again.

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

#212

Post by jprete »

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?

LLMs aren't an abstraction, even a very leaky one, so the analogies with compilers and the like really fall flat for me.

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

#213

Post by andybak »

jcgrillo wrote: post #206
andybak wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, to…

> Are you just working on personal projects or in a shared codebase with tens or hundreds of other devs?

Like - I presume almost everyone - somewhere in the middle?

That was a helluva dichotomy to offer me...

> how do you keep your AI generated content from turning the whole thing into an incomprehensible superfund site of tech debt?

By reading it, thinking about it and testing it?

Did I somehow give the impression I'm cutting and pasting huge globs of code straight from ChatGPT into a git commit?

There's a weird gulf of incomprehension between people that use AI to help them code and those that don't. I'm sure you're as confused by this exchange as I am.

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

#214

Post by bumby »

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?

>Who regulates the regulators?

In a healthy democracy, the civic-minded voters do.

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

#215

Post by makk »

WalterBright wrote: post #193
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.

> 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. The field is wide open for a startup to do it right. Why not start one?

Why not start 10?

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

#216

Post by makk »

> Notably, less experienced developers showed higher adoption rates and greater productivity gains.

And that is why demand for senior developers is going to go through the roof. Who is going to unfuck the giant balls of mud those inexperienced devs are slinging together? Who’s going to keep the lights on?

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

#217

Post by jcgrillo »

andybak wrote: post #213
jcgrillo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, to…

> Are you just working on personal projects or in a shared codebase with tens or hundreds of other devs? Like - I presume almost everyone - somewhere in the middle? That was a helluva dichotomy to offer me... > how do you keep your AI generated content from turning the whole thing into an incomprehensible superfund site of tech debt? By reading it, thinking about it and testing it? Did I somehow give the impression I…

> That was a helluva dichotomy to offer me...

I certainly didn't intend it that way, more like a continuum. O(1) --> O(10) --> O(100) --> ...

> Did I somehow give the impression I'm cutting and pasting huge globs of code straight from ChatGPT into a git commit?

Yes, a little. It seemed to me like you were advocating using the LLM to generate large amounts of tedious output.

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

#218

Post by meiraleal »

einpoklum wrote: post #63

Reminds me of a situation I've been in a few times already: Dev: Hey einpoklum, how do I do XYZ? Me: Hmm, I think I remember that... you could try AB and then C. Dev: Ok, but isn't there a better/easier way? Let me ask ChatGPT. ... Dev: Hey einpoklum, ChatGPT said I should do AB and then C. Me: Let me have a look at that for a second. Me: -Right, so it's just what I read on StackOverflow about this, a couple of years…

> Sometimes it's even the answer that _I_ wrote on StackOverflow and then I feel cheated.

What's next? Royalties from companies that used the answer in their solutions? Do you also want copyright of this comment?

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

#219

Post by numpad0 »

WalterBright wrote: post #193
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.

> 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. The field is wide open for a startup to do it right. Why not start one?

Because techno-meritocratically correct business principles are far from capitalism best practices. Even employees will hate it because you won't be bringing home the bacon.

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

#220

Post by [deleted] »

matrix2003 wrote: post #182
trashtester wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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