The number one skill in the future is the ability to predict the future
Always has been
The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
61–70 of 83 posts
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#62It's going to be a different kind of focus.
Technologies are regularly predicted to diminish a capability that was previously considered important.
Babbage came up with the ideas for his engines after getting frustrated with log tables - how many people reading this have used a log table or calculated one recently?
Calculators meant kids wouldn't need to do arithmetic by hand any more and so would not be able to do maths. In truth they just didn't have to do it by hand any more - they still needed the skills to interpret the results, they just didn't have to do the hard work of creating the outputs by pen and paper.
They also lost the skill of using slide rules which were used to give us approximations, because calculators allowed us to be precise - they were no longer needed.
Computers, similar story.
Then the same came with search engines in our pockets. "Oh no, people can find an answer to anything in seconds, they won't remember things". This is borne out, there have been studies that show recall diminishes if your phone is even in the same room. But you still need to know what to look for, and know what to do with what you find.
I think this'll still be true in the future, and I think TFA kind of agrees, but seems to be doing the "all may be lost" vibe by insisting that you still need foundational skills. You don't need to know the foundational skills if you want to know what the answer to 24923 * 923 is, you can quickly find out the answer and use that answer however you need.
I just think the work shifts - you'll still need to know how to craft your inputs carefully (vibe coding works better if you develop a more detailed specification), and you'll still need to process the output, but you'll become less connected to the foundation and for 99% of the time, that's absolutely fine in the same way it has been with calculators, and so on.
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why I honestly like discord over forums
When you’re on the asking side, sure, instant gratification is great. On the answering side, not so much. Chat interfaces are not a good fit for anything you may have to mull over for a while, or do some investigation before answering, and for anything where multiple such threads may occur in parallel, or that you want to reference later.
I don’t agree
The thing is that most people seeking help are not able to form their question effectively. They can’t even identify the key elements of their problem.
They _need_ help with people trying to parse out their actual problem. Stack Overflow actively tells you to fuck off if you can’t form your question to their standards, and unsurprisingly that’s not very helpful to people that are struggling.
You will need to repeat walking people through the same problems over and over. But… that’s what helping people is like. That’s how we teach people in schools. We don’t just point them to textbooks. Active discords tend to have people that are willing to do this.
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s easy to get hooked on fast answers and forget to ask why something works This is really a tragedy because the current technology is arguably one of the best things in existence for explaining "why?" to someone in a very personalized way. With application of discipline from my side, I can make the LLM lecture me until I genuinely understand the underlying principles of something. I keep hammering it with edge c…
I'm not sure if hammering an LLM until it agrees with you is the best way to get to the truth.
> with edge cases and hypotheticals
not
> conclusions I want to see
The point is to be adversarial with your own ideas, not the opposite thing.
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You're not going to get a violin to stop sounding like a dying cat unless you accept that it's a gradual focused process. You can sample that shit and make some loops in your DAW. Or just use a generative AI nowadays.
There are many ways to be a skillless hack, but why celebrate it?
Beats me. You might ask Sam Altman and the other AI hype clowns. They're the authors of this hot take.
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if hammering an LLM until it agrees with you is the best way to get to the truth.
> with edge cases and hypotheticals not > conclusions I want to see The point is to be adversarial with your own ideas, not the opposite thing.
So, just persist with your own ideas until it agrees with you, because eventually it always will. Then take that as a lesson?
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel that respecting the focus of others is also an important skill. If I'm pulled 27 different ways. Then when I finally get around to another engineer’s question “I need help” is a demand for my synchronous time and focus. Versus “I’m having problems with X, I need to Y, can you help me Z” could turn into a chat, or it could mean I’m able to deliver the needed information at once and move on. Many people these da…
> Many people these days don’t even bother to write questions. They write statements and expect you to infer the question from the statement. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Not even asking for help just stating a complaint.
Well it seems like an easy way to filter them into the ignore pile…
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You're not going to get a violin to stop sounding like a dying cat unless you accept that it's a gradual focused process. You can sample that shit and make some loops in your DAW. Or just use a generative AI nowadays.
There are many ways to be a skillless hack, but why celebrate it?
Using a DAW makes you a "skilless hack"?
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#69I frequent Hacker News and have not noticed that much buzz around AI and LLMs. The vast bulk of that buzz is insubstantial and therefore off topic here. Sites like LinkedIn on the other hand are overrun with the swill.
Re: The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus'
#70Using aimbot in Gunbound didn't make players better. Yes, it changed everything: it destroyed the game ecosystem. Can humanity use "literacy aimbot" responsibly? I don't know. It's just a cautionary tale. I'm not expecting to win an argument. I could come up with counter anectdotes myself: ABS made breaking in slippery conditions easier and safer. People didn't learned to brake better, they still pushed the pedal har…
Appreciate the balanced take. An improvement to a technology can be good, or it can be harmful - and beyond a certain point, further amplification can destroy society and the commons which we all benefit from.
Coca leaves are a relatively benign part of daily life in Peru & a few other surrounding countries - they’re on the table in your hotel lobby, ready to be stirred into your tea. But cocaine - same base but made more intense with technology - causes many problems - and don’t even start about crack cocaine.
So when thinking of technology through the lens of what it amplifies we can consider traditional Internet research & writing contrasted vs. using AI - the latter gives instant answers and often an instant first draft.
Great for some; harmful for others. Where that point lies and what factors contribute is different for every individual.