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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

#131

Post by embedding-shape »

hacb wrote: post #128
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),…

It's absolutely not easy to find a new job in France, and more generally in Europe

My experience and the ones I personally known, been in Western Europe, South America and Asia, and programmers I know have an easier time to find new jobs compared to other professions.

Don't get me wrong, it's a lot harder for new developers to enter the industry compared to a decade ago, even in Western Europe, but it's still way easier compared to the length people I know who aren't programmers or even in tech.

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

#132

Post by embedding-shape »

MattRix wrote: post #105
embedding-shape wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This “compare it to other professions” thing doesn’t really work when those other professions are not the one you actually do. The idea that someone should never be miserable in their job because other more miserable jobs exist is not realistic.

It's a useful thing to look at when you feel like all hope is lost and "wow is so difficult being a programmer" strikes, because it'll make you realize how easy you have it compared to non-programmers/nom-tech people.

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

#133

Post by ryanjshaw »

fragmede wrote: post #102
ryanjshaw wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was embarrassed recently to realize that almost all the code I create these days is written by AIs. Then I realized that’s OK. It’s a tool, and I’m making effective use of it. My job was to solve problems, not to write code. I have a little pet theory brewing. Corporate work claims that we hire junior devs who become intermediate devs, who then become senior devs. The doomsday crowd claim that AI has replaced junio…

Anthropic ran a vending machine business as an experiment, but I don't imagine someone out there isn't already seriously running one in production.

I’ve been tempted to define my life in a big prompt and then do something like: it’s 6:05. Ryan has just woke up. What action (10min or less) does he take? I wonder where I’ll end up if I follow it to a T.

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

#134

Post by IAmBroom »

raincole wrote: post #79
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.

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]: ht…

I think it was more sandbagging than snowballing. The pain was spread out, and mostly delayed, which kept the economy moving despite everything.

Remember that most of the economy is actually hidden from the stock market, its most visible metric. Over half the business is privately-owned small businesses, and at the local level forcibly shutting down all but essential-service shops was devastating. Without government spending, it's hard to imagine how most of those business owners and their employees would have survived, let alone their shops.

Yet we had no bread lines, no (increase in) migratory families chasing cash labor markets, and demands on charity organizations were heavy, but not overwhelming.

But you claim "a country should handle a pandemic better..." - what should we have done instead? Criticism is easy.

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

#135

Post by Hendrikto »

raincole wrote: post #79
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.

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]: ht…

It seems like most companies are just using AI as a convenient cover for layoffs. If you say: “We enormously over-hired and have to do layoffs.”, your stock tanks. If you instead say that you are laying off the same 20k employees ‘because AI’, your stock pumps for no reason. It’s just framing.

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

#136

Post by MattRix »

embedding-shape wrote: post #132
MattRix wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “compare it to other professions” thing doesn’t really work when those other professions are not the one you actually do. The idea that someone should never be miserable in their job because other more miserable jobs exist is not realistic.

It's a useful thing to look at when you feel like all hope is lost and "wow is so difficult being a programmer" strikes, because it'll make you realize how easy you have it compared to non-programmers/nom-tech people.

Realizing how supposedly “easy” you have it compared to other people is not as encouraging or motivational as you’re implying it is. And how “easy” do you have it if you can’t find a job in your field?

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

#137

Post by singpolyma3 »

thunky wrote: post #110
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 You're probably fine as a more senior dev...for now. But if I was a junior I'd be very worried about the longevity I can expect as a dev. It's already easier for many/most cases to assign work to a LLM vs handholding a human through it. Plus as an industry we've been exploiting our employer's lack of information to extract large salaries to produce largely poor qua…

If one is a junior the goal is to become a senior though. Not to remain a junior.

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

#138

Post by everdrive »

>In a world where fascists redefine truth, where surveillance capitalist companies, more powerful than democratically elected leaders, exert control over our desires, do we really want their machines to become part of our thought process? To share our most intimate thoughts and connections with them?

Generally speaking people just cannot really think this way. People broadly are short term thinkers. If something is convenient, people will use it. Is it easier to spray your lawn with pesticides? Yep, cancer (or biome collapse) is a tomorrow problem and we have a "pest" problem today. Is it difficult to sit alone with your thoughts? Well good news, Youtube exists and now you don't have to. What happens next (radicalization, tracking, profiling, propaganda, brain rot) is a tomorrow problem. Do you want to scroll at the end of the day and find out what people are talking about? Well, social media is here for you. Whether or not it's accidentally part of a privatized social credit system? Well again, that 's a problem for later. I _need_ to feel comfortable _right now_. It doesn't matter what I do to the world so long as I'm comfortable _right now._

I don't see any way out of it. People can't seem to avoid these patterns of behavior. People asking for regulation are about as realistic as people hoping for abstinence. It's a correct answer in principle but just isn't going to happen.

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

#139

Post by IAmBroom »

embedding-shape wrote: post #67
m_a_g wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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) In my Big Tech job, I sometimes forget that some people can really enjoy what they do. It seems like you're in a fortunate position of both high pay and high enjoyment. Congratulations! Out of curiosity, what do you work on?

Right now I'm doing consulting for two companies, maybe a couple of hours per week, mostly having downtime and trying to expand on my machine learning knowledge. But in general, every job I've had has been "high pay and high enjoyment" even when I initially had "shit pay" compared to other programmers, and the product wasn't really fun, I was still programming, an activity I still love. Compare this to the jobs I did…

A useful viewpoint.

I too have worked in shit jobs. I too appreciate that I am currently in a 70F room of my house, wearing a T-shirt and comfy pants, and able to pet my doggos at will.

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