Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:01 AM UTC

trashtester wrote: post #173

anonzzzies wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> had to tackle after the less experienced devs have contributed their AI-driven efforts. So, like before AI then? I haven't seen AI deliver illogical nonsense that I couldn't even decipher like I have seen some outsourcing companies deliver.

> that I couldn't even decipher This is one of the challenges of being a tech lead. Sometimes code is hard to comprehend. In my experience, AI delivered code is no worse than entry level developer code.

But that is a HN bubble thing: I work and worked with seniors with 10-15 years under their belt who have no logic bone in their body; the worst (and an AI does not do that) is when there is a somewhat 'busy' function that has an if or switch statement and, over time, to add features or fix bugs, ifs were added. Now after 5+ years, this function is 15000 lines and is somewhat of a trained neural network adjacent thing; 100s of nested ifs, pages long, that cannot be read and cannot be followed even if you have a brain. This is made by senior staff of, usually, outsourcing companies and I have seen it very many times over the past 40 years. Not entry level, not small companies either. I know a gov tax system which was partly maintained by a very large and well known outsourcing company which has numerous of these puppies in production that no one dares to touch.

AI doesn't do stuff like because it could not, which to me, is a good thing. When it gets better, it might start to do it, I don't know.

People here live in a bubble where they think the world is full of people who read 'beautiful code', make tests, use git or something instead of zip$date and know how DeMorgan works; by far, most don't, not juniors, not seniors.

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

#262

Post by gruez » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:05 AM UTC

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.

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

Presumably it rose in Seattle higher/faster than it would otherwise. The source that he provided in a sibling comment says sales dropped "immediately", which seems to corroborate this. It's lazy to argue "well prices rose elsewhere too so the minimum wage law couldn't possibly have had an impact"

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

#263

Post by bumby » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:06 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #248

bumby wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That’s why i said “healthy” and “civic-minded.” I think there’s some truth to the saying “You get the government you deserve”

It still seems to be better than all the alternatives.

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

#264

Post by gruez » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:07 AM UTC

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.

What would this mean in practice? Forcing companies to justify layoffs? Mandating minimum amount of people in frontend/backend/devops/operations/security roles?

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

#265

Post by gruez » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:10 AM UTC

NortySpock wrote: post #229

godelski wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 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…

> my laundry app (that I must use) takes minutes to load Do they have a place to mail your complaints? Who forces you to use the app? Annoy them. Annoy their boss. Write a flier pointing out how long it takes to use the app and leave those fliers in every laundry room you visit (Someone checks on those machines, right?). Heck, send an organization-wide email pointing out this problem. (CC your mayor, council-member,…

>Do they have a place to mail your complaints? Who forces you to use the app?

Presumably the building he lives in contracted out laundry service to some third party company, which is in charge of the machines and therefore shitty app. In this situation there really isn't any real choice to vote with your wallet. They can tell you to pound sand and there's nothing you can do. Your only real option is to move out. Maybe if OP is lucky, owns the property, and is part of the HOA he might be able to lobby for the vendor to be replaced.

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

#266

Post by SoftTalker » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:18 AM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #254

nostrademons wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One person can do the work of 3 and regularly does in startups. I think that what the MBAs miss is this phenomena of overconstraint . Once you have separate the generic role of "developer" into "developer, operations, and security", you've likely specified all sorts of details about how those roles need to be done. When you combine them back into DevSecOps, all the details remain, and you have one person doing 3x the…

I think there is another bit to this which is cargo cult tendencies. Basically DevOps is a great idea under certain circumstances and works well for specific people in that role. Realistically if you take a top talent engineer they can likely step into any of the three roles or even some others and be successful. Having the synergy of one person being responsible for the boundary between two roles then makes your ROI…

> There is no methodology...that can make excellence out of mediocrity.

And yet we keep trying. We continually invent languages, architectures, and development methodologies with the thought that they will help average developers build better systems.

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

#267

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:22 AM UTC

jcgrillo wrote: post #217

andybak wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It does generate swats of code, however, you have to review and test it. But, depending on what you are working in/with, you would have to write this yourself anyway; for instance, Go has always so much plumbing, AI simply removes all those keystrokes. And very rigorously; it adds all the err and defer blocks in, which can be 100s and a large % of one go file: what is the point of writing that yourself? It does that very fast as well; if you write the main logic without any of that stuff and ask sonnet to make it 'good code', you write a few lines and get 100s back.

But it is far more useful on verbose 'team written' corporate stuff than on the more reuse intensive tech: in CL or Haskell, the community is far more DRY than Go or JS/TS; you tend to create and reuse many things and your much of the end result is (basically) a DSL; current AI is not very good at that in my experience; it will recreate or hallucinate (when you pressure reuse of previously created things, if there are too many, even though it does fit in the context window) functions all over the place. But many people have the same issue; they don't know, cannot search or forget and will just redo things many times over; AI makes that far easier (as in, no work at all often), so that's the new reality.

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

#268

Post by SoftTalker » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:23 AM UTC

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…

Your high deductible should have been covered by an HSA. In fact AFAIK it's required that you have one if you are on a high deductible plan.

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

#269

Post by malfist » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:25 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #246

malfist wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Leaving aside the relevance of an Alaskan newspaper talking about local Seattle politics, their only source is a news article from Seattle written the week of the law taking effect.

As I said in my original comment, show me something that isn't from the first couple of weeks after it took effect. Preferably something scholarly, not just anecdotes from a newspaper

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

#270

Post by SoftTalker » Sat, Sep 07, 2024, 2:25 AM UTC

sevensor wrote: post #259

swader999 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Funny, my world is full of the other kind of engineer. We all come with domain knowledge built in, and programming is the complex domain many people don’t want to learn.

I've worked in higher ed. Many of the masters students I see want the credential but they have no desire to write code. Copying and plagarism are rampant.