71–80 of 221 posts
I am probably different to most people, but I always have trouble understanding why people want to have jobs so much. The obvious and direct answer immediately of course is "to be able to pay the bills". But of course if we automated those jobs with AI, we could direct AI produced value into universal basic income so people wouldn't lose their income. Then the concern is of course, that the owners will not share the…
I am probably different to most people, but I always have trouble understanding why people want to have jobs so much. The obvious and direct answer immediately of course is "to be able to pay the bills". But of course if we automated those jobs with AI, we could direct AI produced value into universal basic income so people wouldn't lose their income. Then the concern is of course, that the owners will not share the…
I lay none of the blame on AI the technology, and all the blame on AI as a mindset and excuse.
Layoffs are not due to AI, but it's a convenient excuse: "more productive, don't need people, we're firing on all cylinders and yeah, firing 20% of the workforce while we're at it". Everything else being equal, the "more productive so we earn 20%" counterfactual makes more sense - but of course, not everything else is equal.
Treadmill speed will increase, no doubt. We haven't lowered working hours from 40 to 20 when computers 2x'd us all, we for sure won't lower them now.
We'll manage the nondeterministic imperfections, but boy, will there be bumps on the road.
What I fear most: AI will give us all more power. This includes profitmaxxing no-holds-barred corpos, from preseed startups hustling 996-style to big multinacionals. Even now, with locked-down devices and subscriptions for everything and owning things replaced with "owning a limited nontransferrable revokable end-user license", it's not good. AI is going to multiply that.
Damn, now I need a drink.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> elitist junk masquerading as logic Lol. "Déformation professionnelle" is an elitist junk these days. It's a defect, and I would gladly get rid my brain of all this programming bullshit if my life didn't depend on it and I wouldn't hear from every fucking corner how: 1) During 2010-2015 Indians/Eastern Europeans/Outsource agencies are going to replace me 2) During 2015-2022 Bootcampers/kids working for a bowl of ric…
Then quit doing it. I am legally not allowed to quit my job. I do not have that priviledge. If i dont go to work they will send police to make me. To say that software development is somehow special, more impactful on one's life and personality, than that is indeed very elitist.
I've been calling it Deep Blue: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/15/deep-blue/
So you are saying in the end of that piece that chess players came out stronger? You know how? Because AI is forbidden in tournaments and there are plenty of idle rich sponsors in Chess (it is popular among autocrats). So you are envisioning a future of software development where we have coding competitions sponsored by MBS where AI is forbidden? Like your Pelican meme, which is designed to cutify AI, this is propaga…
I am probably different to most people, but I always have trouble understanding why people want to have jobs so much. The obvious and direct answer immediately of course is "to be able to pay the bills". But of course if we automated those jobs with AI, we could direct AI produced value into universal basic income so people wouldn't lose their income. Then the concern is of course, that the owners will not share the…
Has it ever occured to you, presumably, a white collar worker, to "give back" to others less fortunate than you? With your presumably, well-above earnings, does it ever cross your mind to give a recurring stipend to some other people, even though it could make a real difference to someone? Not really? I guess you got your answer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> elitist junk masquerading as logic Lol. "Déformation professionnelle" is an elitist junk these days. It's a defect, and I would gladly get rid my brain of all this programming bullshit if my life didn't depend on it and I wouldn't hear from every fucking corner how: 1) During 2010-2015 Indians/Eastern Europeans/Outsource agencies are going to replace me 2) During 2015-2022 Bootcampers/kids working for a bowl of ric…
Then quit doing it. I am legally not allowed to quit my job. I do not have that priviledge. If i dont go to work they will send police to make me. To say that software development is somehow special, more impactful on one's life and personality, than that is indeed very elitist.
Programmers are more impacted now than manufacturing were because they identify with work?
The better prior is when manufacturing or office workers had to take on the job of outsourcing or automating away the work of others, because it highlights the guilt of knowing that it's not good for others, but it's temporarily good for you. Normally we try to expand our concern to our neighbor, but sometimes we have to put on the blinders. It's not fun to pull up the ladder you climbed.
The sweet spot of delivering productivity enhancement is when something that was previously too costly now becomes economically feasible -- so you're helping new products/services. It's doubly good because you're not just working/extracting on a value stream, you're creating a new one. Best to aim for that.
>>> For a cognitive professional, expertise is not only an activity. It is a large part of the self. A data scientist who has spent a decade building statistical judgment does not experience that judgment as a detachable tool. It is closer to a personality trait. Total BS. Top-to-bottom offensive, elitist junk masquerading as logic. Written by someone who has never spent an afternoon with a farmer, with a cop, with a…
> elitist junk masquerading as logic Lol. "Déformation professionnelle" is an elitist junk these days. It's a defect, and I would gladly get rid my brain of all this programming bullshit if my life didn't depend on it and I wouldn't hear from every fucking corner how: 1) During 2010-2015 Indians/Eastern Europeans/Outsource agencies are going to replace me 2) During 2015-2022 Bootcampers/kids working for a bowl of ric…
The part about existing outside of work - that's just reality though. A lot of coders are just doing it to support their families, and a lot of them aren't doing a side hustle or side projects when they're off the 9-5. That stuff gets normalized and glamorized in the highly-compensated-engineering-for-cool-tech-company scene, but there really are working coders who don't do any of that and get by fine all the same. They just tend to live in uncool cities and work in uncool industries.
The underlying issue here is the same as why I am generally opposed to large governments, entitlement programs, etc. In the case of jobs, we are already overly dependent on individual incomes just to get by. We've collectively outsourced nearly everything a person needs to actually survive, choosing to pay for everything rather than know how to do it ourselves or go without. A tiny fraction of people today are involv…
Uh, you realise what you are actually opposed to is sedentary civilisation itself? Specialisation is old dude.
I don't agree that civilization demands dependence, by the way. We can choose to buy food from someone else while knowing how we would do it ourselves, ideally with some experience. We can buy our food from someone local, reducing our dependence by shrinking the loop is a huge improvement on what we have today.
I wasn't arguing that specialization is bad or evil, but I would argue that too much specialization can lead to a fragile system.