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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

#241

Post by skydhash »

anonzzzies wrote: post #35
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. 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…

> people who are interested in technology have almost an aversion against using AI

Personally, I don't use LLMs. But I don't mind people using them as interactive search engines or code/text manipulations as long as they're aware of the hallucination risks and took care of what they're copying into the project. My reasons for it is mostly that I'm a journey guy, not a destination guy. And I love reading books and manuals as they give me an extensive knowledge map. Using LLMs feels like taking guidance from someone who has not ventured 1km outside their village, but heard descriptions from passersby. Too much vigilance required for the occasional good stuff.

And the truth is, there are a lot of great books and manuals out there. And while they teach you how to do stuff, they often teach you why you should not do it. I strongly doubt Copilot imparting architectural and technical reminders alongside the code.

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

#242

Post by saintradon »

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'…

Like any other tool, it depends on how you use it.

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

#243

Post by WalterBright »

djbusby wrote: post #205
WalterBright wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, it was the Seattle laws that did it locally. The food delivery gig drivers were not Uber/Lyft.

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

#245

Post by dragon-hn »

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

This is an unfortunate attitude. The current state of things in our industry is a reflection of this “not my job” way of doing things.

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

#246

Post by WalterBright »

malfist wrote: post #198
WalterBright wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You need a citation for that claim. And something more than just "the week after this went into effect it reduced sale volume" And besides, what's the alternative here? Don't protect employees? Let them work below minimum wage?

https://mustreadalaska.com/labor-day-cautionary-tale-for-gig...

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

#247

Post by PaulHoule »

WalterBright wrote: post #189
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…

> got branded as an insurance ML guy I got branded as a compiler guy. My salary is $0.

I’ve never gotten avaricious small town business types to believe that the cheap thing to do if the proprietary language you spent a lot to buy is EOL is hire some interns from your local Uni who took a compilers class to write an implementation or translator for $0.00 and some good experiences although… it’s true.

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

#248

Post by WalterBright »

bumby wrote: post #214
WalterBright wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn't work out very well. The voters are too far removed from it, and the instruments the voters have are far too blunt.

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

#249

Post by WalterBright »

PaulHoule wrote: post #247
WalterBright wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> got branded as an insurance ML guy I got branded as a compiler guy. My salary is $0.

I’ve never gotten avaricious small town business types to believe that the cheap thing to do if the proprietary language you spent a lot to buy is EOL is hire some interns from your local Uni who took a compilers class to write an implementation or translator for $0.00 and some good experiences although… it’s true.

Taking a college level compiler class will get you a toy compiler.

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

#250

Post by skydhash »

arexxbifs wrote: post #210
Workaccount2 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

And it really helps if you have a global view across the abstraction stack, even if you don't dive in the details of the implementation. I still think that having some computer organization/OS architecture knowledge would be great for developers, at least to know that memory is not free, even though we have GBs of it and that having an internet connection is not an integral part of the computer like the power supply.
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