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AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

koshyjohn.com

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Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#441

Post by misja111 »

nunez wrote: post #303

> If the job were mainly about producing syntactically valid code, then of course A.I. would be on a direct path to replacing large parts of the profession. But that was never the highest-value part of the work. The value was always in judgment. > The valuable engineer is the one who sees the hidden constraint before it causes an outage. The one who notices that the team is solving the wrong problem. The one who redu…

> How do you think engineers in the second half got there? By writing tons and tons of code to "build those reps" and gain that experience.

Well this is true, but that doesn't mean that there isn't any other way to acquire this knowledge. Until now, this way of gaining deeper understanding was simply the most practical one, since you needed to write lots of code when starting out as a software engineer.

But it's just as well possible to gain knowledge about useful abstractions and clean code by using AI to do the work. You'll find out after a while which codebases get you stuck and which code abstractions leverage your AI because it needs fewer tokens to read and extend your codebase.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#442

Post by jmalicki »

nunez wrote: post #303

> If the job were mainly about producing syntactically valid code, then of course A.I. would be on a direct path to replacing large parts of the profession. But that was never the highest-value part of the work. The value was always in judgment. > The valuable engineer is the one who sees the hidden constraint before it causes an outage. The one who notices that the team is solving the wrong problem. The one who redu…

> How do you think engineers in the second half got there? By writing tons and tons of code to "build those reps" and gain that experience.

It's not by writing syntax that you get there. It's by creating software and gaining the experience of seeing it go wrong.

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

AI just shortens the cycle without needing to type out syntax, so you get even more iterations, faster, and learn the lessons more quickly.

Some do not learn from that experience. They were never going to learn without AI either.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#443

Post by erdaniels »

This feels AI written as the post goes on. Either way, I'd like for us to stop fetishizing how we can use AI to make us stronger, better, and more valuable engineers. It's exhausting and doesn't consider other ways to use it. I've only been using it lately for tasks that are a step or two above google. Having it write code for me has just been a slippery, unfulfilling slope.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#444

Post by classified »

jmalicki wrote: post #442
nunez wrote: post #303

> If the job were mainly about producing syntactically valid code, then of course A.I. would be on a direct path to replacing large parts of the profession. But that was never the highest-value part of the work. The value was always in judgment. > The valuable engineer is the one who sees the hidden constraint before it causes an outage. The one who notices that the team is solving the wrong problem. The one who redu…

> How do you think engineers in the second half got there? By writing tons and tons of code to "build those reps" and gain that experience. It's not by writing syntax that you get there. It's by creating software and gaining the experience of seeing it go wrong. "Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." AI just shortens the cycle without needing to type out syntax, so you get even m…

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#445

Post by djaro »

pityJuke wrote: post #364
netcan wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of paraimony between your statement and Socrates' comments on the transition to writing. Interestingly, he placed a lot of importance on memory... where you emphasize manipulation of concepts.

I’ve grown to appreciate this aspect of standard examination as I’ve gotten older. Everyone wants to say “oh, you can just look it up now”, but how can you come up with higher level thinking, when you don’t have the fundamentals in your mind?

To use math as an example, you can always look up formulas. But after more than 1 "layer" of looking up, that quickly becomes impossible. Like, when I had to learn to calculate derivatives and primitives, I could look those things up. But when I got to linear algebra, I couldn't progress until I deeply internalized derivatives and primitives, because looking up formula A only for it to contain unknown formula B just becomes a mess.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#446

Post by rimliu »

resident423 wrote: post #300

I feel like these articles are just a reasurance for people who don't want to accept that AI will automate their jobs. It becomes easier to focus on a lesser group of AI users and feel superior than to confront the reality of things.

So, how many jobs were automated by AI? Or is that "in six to eight months"?

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#447

Post by AgentMatt »

afro88 wrote: post #417
nunez wrote: post #303

> If the job were mainly about producing syntactically valid code, then of course A.I. would be on a direct path to replacing large parts of the profession. But that was never the highest-value part of the work. The value was always in judgment. > The valuable engineer is the one who sees the hidden constraint before it causes an outage. The one who notices that the team is solving the wrong problem. The one who redu…

This has happened in other industries before. Drafting for example when CAD arrived. Entry level wasn't "can draw, willing to learn" anymore, but demanded high domain understanding. So the pathway became compressed learning through study, and field exposure. Study of senior drafter "red lines": what and why they changed the initial drawing, RFI response etc. Reverse engineering good work. Failed design studies etc. S…

> We don't hire juniors and throw them boilerplate and tiny bugs while expecting them to learn along the way ad hoc through some pair programming and the occasional deep end.

Is that generally the case though? I'm about two years into my first job in the industry and that's exactly my experience, and certainly frustrating...

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#448

Post by nly »

hackermolly wrote: post #373
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of argument flies in the face of the fact that plenty of inherited rich people seem to lead very happy lives. Of course, they do find things to struggle with, but it's much more pleasant to struggle to score 72 at the golf course or to outbid a rival for a piece of contemporary art than to struggle for basic needs.

I don’t share your idea of a happy life. I can live a happy life without struggling for basic needs and without playing golf all day long. If you strip off every obligation from life, then you exist, not live. Facing challenges and overcoming obstacles, friends and family is what makes me happy. When you’re rich, most people only care about your money, not the person you are. And I think that’s exactly what a happy l…

It's fairly easy to be submarine rich, and fly completely below the radar. Just brush off questions about your work with vagueness. If you're not flashy, nobody will suspect you're rich

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#449

Post by zozbot234 »

erdaniels wrote: post #443

This feels AI written as the post goes on. Either way, I'd like for us to stop fetishizing how we can use AI to make us stronger, better, and more valuable engineers. It's exhausting and doesn't consider other ways to use it. I've only been using it lately for tasks that are a step or two above google. Having it write code for me has just been a slippery, unfulfilling slope.

Apparently the write code part works a bit better in languages like Rust and perhaps Swift where the compiler is unforgiving in rejecting outright nonsense and the AI can iterate on any errors it gets. Of course logically flawed code is always possible so this does not replace human review. But code in these languages is also a bit more compact and hopefully easier to understand for a human.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#450

Post by chrisweekly »

phito wrote: post #348
rimliu wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that by purging stuff from the brain we are losing thinking itself. Thinking is manipulating ideas and concepts in your head, assembling and linking. The fewer things there is, the more primitive the result. You cannot juggle without object to juggle, connecting the dots result in trivial patterns when you have just a couple of dots.

It's true for all automation we do get more comfort. We build systems so that we humans have as little struggle as possible, not realising that struggle is the only reason for existence. By eliminating it, we are erasing ourselves from this world.

"struggle is the only reason for existence"

That is a bold and frankly unsupportable claim.

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