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I don't care how well your "AI" works

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Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#71

Post by kalaksi »

embedding-shape wrote: post #42
kalaksi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> programmers should be some of the most worry-free individuals on this planet, the job is easy, well-paid, not a lot of health drawbacks... I don't know what kind of work you do but this depends a lot on what kind of projects you work on

Across ~10 jobs or so, mostly as a employee of 5-100 person companies, sometimes as a consultant, sometimes as a freelancer, but always with a comfy paycheck compared to any other career, and never as taxing (mental and physical) as the physical labor I did before I was a programmer, and that some of my peers are still doing. Of course, there is always exceptions, like programmers who need to hike to volcanos to setu…

Sure, it's mostly comfy and well-paid. But like with physical labor, there are jobs/projects that are easy and not as taxing, and jobs that are harder and more taxing (in this case mentally).

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#72

Post by embedding-shape »

csmantle wrote: post #41
embedding-shape wrote: post #20

> And yeah, I get it. We programmers are currently living through the devaluation of our craft, in a way and rate we never anticipated possible. I'm a programmer, been coding professionally for 10 something years, and coding for myself longer than that. What are they talking about? What is this "devaluation"? I'm getting paid more than ever for a job I feel like I almost shouldn't get paid for (I'm just having fun),…

> programmers should be some of the most worry-free individuals on this planet, the job is easy, well-paid, not a lot of health drawbacks if you have a proper setup and relatively easy to find a new job when you need it Not in where I live though. Competition is fierce, both in industry and academia, for most posts being saturated and most employees face "HR optimization" in their late 30s. Not to mention working ove…

Again, compare this to other professions, don't look at in isolation, and you'll see why you're still (or will have, seems you're a student still) having a much more pleasant life than others.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#73

Post by skwee357 »

Well, there are two aspects from which I can react to this post.

The first aspect is the “I don’t touch AI with a stick”. AI is a tool. Nobody is obligated to touch it obviously, but it is useful in certain situations. So I disagree with the author’a position to avoid using AI. It reads like stubbornness for the sake of avoiding new tech.

The second angle is the “bigtech corporate control” angle. And honestly, I don’t get this argument at all. Computers and the digital world has created the biggest distopian world we have ever witnessed. From absurd amounts of misinformation and propaganda fueled by bot farms operated at government levels, all the way to digital surveillance tech. You have that strong of an opinion against big tech and digital surveillance, blaming AI for that, while enjoying the other perils of big tech, is virtue signaling.

Also, what’s up with the overuse of “fascism” in places where it does not belong?

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#74

Post by embedding-shape »

lm28469 wrote: post #65
embedding-shape wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, sucks to be in the US as a programmer today maybe, but this isn't true elsewhere in the world, and especially not if you already have at least some experience.

Definitely true in western Europe, and finding a job is extremely hard for the vast majority of non expert devs. Of course if you're in south eastern europe or in south asia where all the jobs are being offshored you're having the time of your life.

> Definitely true in western Europe, and finding a job is extremely hard for the vast majority of non expert devs.

I don't know what else to say except that hasn't been my experience personally, nor the experience of my acquaintances who've re-skilled to become programmers these last few years, in Western Europe.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#75

Post by DJBunnies »

embedding-shape wrote: post #59
Mashimo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What exactly is being de-valuated for a profession that seems to be continuously growing A lot of newly skilled job applicants can't find anything in the job market right now.

Based on conversations with peers for the last ~3 years or so, some of retrained to become programmers, this doesn't seem to as absolute as you paint it out to be. But as mentioned earlier, the situation in the US seems much more dire than elsewhere. People I know who entered the programming profession in South America, Europe and Asia for these last years don't seem to have more troubles than I had when I got starte…

Nah it's pretty bad, but congrats on being an outlier.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#77

Post by Glemkloksdjf »

shlip wrote: post #2

> AI systems exist to reinforce and strengthen existing structures of power and violence. Exactly. You can see that with the proliferation of chickenized reverse centaurs[1] in all kinds of jobs. Getting rid of the free-willed human in the loop is the aim now that bosses/stakeholders have seen the light. [1] https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenize...

If you are a software engineere, you can leverage AI a lot better to write code than anyone else.

The complexity of good code, is still complicated.

which means 1. if software development is really solved, everyone else also gets a huge problem (ceo, cto, accountants, designers, etc. etc.) so we are in the back of the ai doomsday line.

And 2. it allows YOU to leverage AI a lot better which can enable you to create your own product.

In my startup, we leverage AI and we are not worried that another company just does the same thing because even if they do, we know how to write good code and architecture and we are also using AI. So we will always be ahead.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#78

Post by amrocha »

embedding-shape wrote: post #74
lm28469 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely true in western Europe, and finding a job is extremely hard for the vast majority of non expert devs. Of course if you're in south eastern europe or in south asia where all the jobs are being offshored you're having the time of your life.

> Definitely true in western Europe, and finding a job is extremely hard for the vast majority of non expert devs. I don't know what else to say except that hasn't been my experience personally, nor the experience of my acquaintances who've re-skilled to become programmers these last few years, in Western Europe.

Do you base your entire worldview purely on your own personal experience?

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#79

Post by raincole »

Mashimo wrote: post #44
embedding-shape wrote: post #20

> And yeah, I get it. We programmers are currently living through the devaluation of our craft, in a way and rate we never anticipated possible. I'm a programmer, been coding professionally for 10 something years, and coding for myself longer than that. What are they talking about? What is this "devaluation"? I'm getting paid more than ever for a job I feel like I almost shouldn't get paid for (I'm just having fun),…

> What exactly is being de-valuated for a profession that seems to be continuously growing A lot of newly skilled job applicants can't find anything in the job market right now.

Because tech corps overhired[0] when the interest rate was low.

Even after the layoffs, most big tech corps still have more employees today than they did in 2020.

The situation is bad, but the lesson to learn here is that a country should handle a pandemic better than "lowering interest rate to near-zero and increasing government spending." It's just kicking and snowballing the problem to the next four years.

[0]: https://www.dw.com/en/could-layoffs-in-tech-jobs-spread-to-r...

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