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Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

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Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#281

Post by mlboss »

deegles wrote: post #269
rybosworld wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I am constantly surprised how prevalent this attitude is. ChatGPT was only just released in 2022. Is there some expectation that these things won't improve? > LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test This is ego speaking.

LLMs as they currently exist will never yield a true, actually-sentient AI. maybe they will get better in some ways, but it's like asking if a bird will ever fly to the moon. Something else is needed.

A bird can fly to moon if it keeps on improving every month.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#282

Post by bdangubic »

rybosworld wrote: post #85
simianparrot wrote: post #80

Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I have a job at a place I love and get more people in my direct network and extended contacting me about work than ever before in my 20 year career. And finally I keep myself sharp by always making sure I challenge myself creatively. I’m not afraid to delve into areas to understand them that might look “…

> Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I am constantly surprised how prevalent this attitude is. ChatGPT was only just released in 2022. Is there some expectation that these things won't improve? > LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test This is ego speaking.

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#283

Post by ktxyznvda »

FlyingLawnmower wrote: post #252
pockmarked19 wrote: post #192

I see this sort of take from a lot of people and I always tell them to do the same exercise. A cure for baseless fears. Pick an LLM. Any LLM. Ask it what the goat river crossing puzzle is. With luck, it will tell you about the puzzle involving a boatman, a goat, some vegetable, and some predator. If it doesn’t, it’s disqualified. Now ask it to do the same puzzle but with two goats and a cabbage (or whatever vegetable…

https://chatgpt.com/share/6760a122-0ec4-8008-8b72-3e950f0288... My first try with o1. Seems right to me…what does this teach us about LLMs :)?

Let's ask for 3 goats then. And how much developing o1 cost, how much another version will cost? X billions of dollars per goat is not really a good scaling when any number of goats or cabbages can exist.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#284

Post by mlboss »

LLM's for now only have 2-3 senses. The real shift will come when they can collect data using robotics. Right now a human programmer is needed to explain the domain to AI and review the code based on the domain.

On the bright side, every programmer can start a business without a need to hire a army of programmers. I think we are getting back to artisan based economy where everyone can be a producer without a corporate job.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#285

Post by tlarkworthy »

munk-a wrote: post #145
IshKebab wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there some expectation that these things won't improve? I definitely expect them to improve. But I also think the point at which they can actually replace a senior programmer is pretty much the exact point at which they can replace any knowledge worker, at which point western society (possibly all society) is in way deeper shit than just me being out of a job. > This is ego speaking. It definitely isn't. LLMs ar…

Intellisense style systems were a huge feature leap when they gained wider language support and reliability. LLMs are yet another step forward for intellisense and the effort of comprehending the code you're altering. I don't think I will ever benefit from code generation in a serious setting (it's excellent for prototyping) simply due to the fact that it's solving the easy problem (write some code) while creating a…

> I can already type faster than I can think.

But can you write tickets faster than you can implement them? I certainly can.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#286

Post by karaterobot »

RangerScience wrote: post #262
PeterisP wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a LLM (or any other tool) makes so that team of 8 can get the same results in the same time as it used to take a team of 10 to do, then I would count that as "replaced 2 programmers" - even if there's no particular person for which the whole job has been replaced, that's not a meaningful practical difference, replacing a significant fraction of every programmer's job has the same outcomes and impacts as replacing…

Fav anecdote from ages ago: When hand-held power tools became a thing, the Hollywood set builder’s union was afraid of this exact same thing - people would be replaced by the tools. Instead, productions built bigger sets (the ceiling was raised) and smaller productions could get in on things (the floor was lowered). I always took that to mean “people aren’t going to spend less to do the job - they’ll just do a bigger…

Another anecdote: when mechanical looms became a thing, textile workers were afraid that the new tools would replace them, and they were right.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#288

Post by unclad5968 »

themanmaran wrote: post #218
thor_molecules wrote: post #179

After reading the comments, the themes I'm seeing are: - AI will provide a big mess for wizards to clean up - AI will replace juniors and then seniors within a short timeframe - AI will soon plateau and the bubble will burst - "Pshaw I'm not paid to code; I'm a problem solver" - AI is useless in the face of true coding mastery It is interesting to me that this forum of expert technical people are so divided on this (…

The biggest surprise to me (generally across HN) is that people expect LLMs to develop on a really slow timeframe. In the last two years LLM capabilities have gone from "produces a plausible sentence" to "can generate a functioning web app". Sure it's not as masterful as one produced by a team of senior engineers, but a year ago it was impossible. But everyone seems to evaluate LLMs like they're fixed at today's capa…

Probably because we see stuff like this every decade. Ten years ago no one was ever going to drive again because self-driving cars were imminent. Turns out a lot of problems can be partially solved very quickly, but as anyone with experience knows, solving the last 10% takes at least as much time as solving the first 90.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#289

Post by VeejayRampay »

LLMs are not really there except for juniors though

the quality of the code is as bad as it was two years ago, the mistakes are always there somewhere and take a long time to spot, to the point where it's somewhat of a useless party trick to actually use a LLM for software development

and for more senior stuff the code is not what matters anyway, it's reassuring other stakeholders, budgeting, estimation, documentation, evangelization, etc.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#290

Post by VeejayRampay »

mlboss wrote: post #281
deegles wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs as they currently exist will never yield a true, actually-sentient AI. maybe they will get better in some ways, but it's like asking if a bird will ever fly to the moon. Something else is needed.

A bird can fly to moon if it keeps on improving every month.

it literally cannot though, unless it becomes some other form of life that doesn't need oxygen, that's the whole thing with this analogy, it's ironically suited to the discourse
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