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Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

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Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#131

Post by PunchyHamster »

KronisLV wrote: post #101
bborud wrote: post #67

Multiple times per week I have the same conversation. It goes something like this: - AI will make developers irrelevant - Why? - Because LLMs can write code - Do you know what I do for a living? - Yes, write code? - Yes, about 2-5% of the time. Less now. - But you said you are a developer? - I did - So what do you do 95-98% of the time? - I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions - But I ca…

> Yes, about 2-5% of the time. There are also those for whom that percentage is higher, let’s say 6-50%. > I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions The AI is coming for that too. You might just be lucky to be in circumstances that value your contributions or an industry or domain that isn’t well represented in the training data, or problem spaces too complex for AI. Not everyone is, not ev…

> The AI is coming for that too.

Current AI tech giants prove over and over and over again that this is not the case

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#132

Post by dominotw »

Daishiman wrote: post #117
giobox wrote: post #36

Anecdotally, it feels like something materially changed in the US software hiring market at the start of this year to me. It feels like more and more businesses are taking a wait and see approach to avoid over-investing in human capital in the next few years. It also feels like the hiring "signal", which was always weak before, is just completely gone now, when every job you do advertise receives over 500 LLM written…

> Anecdotally, it feels like something materially changed in the US software hiring market at the start of this year to me. It feels like more and more businesses are taking a wait and see approach to avoid over-investing in human capital in the next few years. My guess is companies overhired in COVID and between that experience and an uncertain market they don't want to make the same mistake twice.

where did the excess labor force suddenly materialize in covid.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#133

Post by dominotw »

harimau777 wrote: post #20

I keep reading about how AI will be fine because people can just retrain for different careers. However, I never read what those careers are or who is going to pay for retraining. I certainly don't have the money or time to go back to college and start a new career at the bottom.

AI cannot create art by itself.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#134

Post by bborud »

ryandvm wrote: post #104
bborud wrote: post #67

Multiple times per week I have the same conversation. It goes something like this: - AI will make developers irrelevant - Why? - Because LLMs can write code - Do you know what I do for a living? - Yes, write code? - Yes, about 2-5% of the time. Less now. - But you said you are a developer? - I did - So what do you do 95-98% of the time? - I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions - But I ca…

I dunno, man. I've been doing this for 20+ years and I think we're at a really important fork in the road where there are two possibilities. The first is that AI is achieving human-level expertise and capability, but since they're now being increasingly trained on their own output they are fighting an uphill battle against model collapse. In that case, perhaps AI is going to just sort of max out at "knowing everythin…

You are supposing that AI is achieving human level expertise and capability is a given. I am not so sure. Right now that's much further from the truth than one might think at first glance.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#135

Post by hateful »

bborud wrote: post #67

Multiple times per week I have the same conversation. It goes something like this: - AI will make developers irrelevant - Why? - Because LLMs can write code - Do you know what I do for a living? - Yes, write code? - Yes, about 2-5% of the time. Less now. - But you said you are a developer? - I did - So what do you do 95-98% of the time? - I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions - But I ca…

Not sure where I first heard this, but I say it to my team all the time: "Programming is thinking, not typing"

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#136

Post by tehnub »

>If the models are good enough, you will simply get outcompeted by engineers willing to trade their long-term cognitive ability for a short-term lucrative career

> (2) AI-users thus become less effective engineers over time, as their technical skills atrophy

Wouldn't (2) imply that if everyone just used AI there eventually would come a time when there aren't engineers who will outcompete you (because their skills are so atrophied)?

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#137

Post by LPisGood »

KronisLV wrote: post #101
bborud wrote: post #67

Multiple times per week I have the same conversation. It goes something like this: - AI will make developers irrelevant - Why? - Because LLMs can write code - Do you know what I do for a living? - Yes, write code? - Yes, about 2-5% of the time. Less now. - But you said you are a developer? - I did - So what do you do 95-98% of the time? - I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions - But I ca…

> Yes, about 2-5% of the time. There are also those for whom that percentage is higher, let’s say 6-50%. > I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions The AI is coming for that too. You might just be lucky to be in circumstances that value your contributions or an industry or domain that isn’t well represented in the training data, or problem spaces too complex for AI. Not everyone is, not ev…

> The AI is coming for that too.

That may be true I’m not gonna say one way or the other, but if AI comes for that then almost all knowledge work is effectively dead, so all that’s left would be sales or physical labor.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#138

Post by jjmarr »

dominotw wrote: post #132
Daishiman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anecdotally, it feels like something materially changed in the US software hiring market at the start of this year to me. It feels like more and more businesses are taking a wait and see approach to avoid over-investing in human capital in the next few years. My guess is companies overhired in COVID and between that experience and an uncertain market they don't want to make the same mistake twice.

where did the excess labor force suddenly materialize in covid.

the "learn to code" campaign began ramping up in 2013. If you started undergrad in 2016 you would've graduated right into the covid market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learn_to_Code#Policy_impact

I think the hype peaked around 2016 where Democrats were portrayed as out of touch for saying laid off coal miners could just "learn to code". By 2019 it was a cliché used to mock laid off journalists on Twitter.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#139

Post by LPisGood »

dominotw wrote: post #132
Daishiman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anecdotally, it feels like something materially changed in the US software hiring market at the start of this year to me. It feels like more and more businesses are taking a wait and see approach to avoid over-investing in human capital in the next few years. My guess is companies overhired in COVID and between that experience and an uncertain market they don't want to make the same mistake twice.

where did the excess labor force suddenly materialize in covid.

This is a great question that rarely gets answered. It’s partially that a ton of student students went to school for computer science because they saw how much money could be made, another fraction is people that switched into software from related fields, maybe with a boot camp or something.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#140

Post by terseus »

SoftTalker wrote: post #128
bborud wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The AI is coming for that too. To some degree yes, in practice, not so much. In practice you have to be in the world, talk to people, know how to talk to people, know how to listen, and be able to understand the difference between what people say and what they actually need. Not want. Need. This was something I learnt in my very first job in the 1980s. I worked for someone who did industrial automation beyond PLCs…

> To some degree yes, in practice, not so much. We used to say that (not long ago, even) about the code-writing part. Why do we believe that LLMs are going to stop there? Why do we think they won't soon be able to talk to people, listen, and determine what they need? I think it's mostly a cope. We have robots walking just fine now, by the way.

> Why do we believe that LLMs are going to stop there?

Why do you believe they wont? I think it's reasonable to assume that we will hit a ceiling that current models will not be able to break.

> We have robots walking just fine now, by the way.

Walking and reasoning are unrelated abilities.

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