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AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

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Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#161

Post by dosisking »

cedws wrote: post #118
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #11

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…

UBI is never coming man. Rich countries don’t even properly provide healthcare or take care of pensioners, let alone handing everyone a paycheck every month for doing nothing.

UBI is intended to replace Pension Funds, which are collapsing because they were forced to invest in government bonds. ECB had negative interest rates for a long time, and pensions need 8% to survive. There is an imminent sovereign debt crisis which will probably start in the UAE or somewhere in the Middle East. So UBI is simply a rebranding of Pensions.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#162

Post by ornornor »

throwuxiytayq wrote: post #160
ornornor wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nursing is feminine coded occupation and trucking attracts men who want to prove own masculinity In your head maybe?

Some stereotypes are a useful description of reality. You’ve gotta pick your battles. In the US, 87.3% of nurses are female and 92.3% of truckers are male.

Maybe this nomenclature of yours doesn’t help.

A “computer” used to be a job mostly done by female. Now it’s the opposite.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#163

Post by classified »

LilBytes wrote: post #2

Quotes from the article: 'Work as Identity: The Foundation' Knowledge workers hold a different relationship to their labor than manufacturing workers did. 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. When…

> Artificial Intelligence Replacement Dysfunction

I take issue with calling it a dysfunction when the symptoms are a completely natural and appropriate response to an irritation. To me, it has a whiff of blaming the victim.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#164

Post by smikhanov »

harvey9 wrote: post #5
LilBytes wrote: post #2

Quotes from the article: 'Work as Identity: The Foundation' Knowledge workers hold a different relationship to their labor than manufacturing workers did. 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. When…

The idea that skilled people who work with their hands don't identify with their work is laughable.

The article says nothing about “skilled people who work with their hands” specifically, so it’s unclear what is being refuted here.

However there are people in the workforce who don’t identify with their work. Those are likely not in professions that Marx thought of when he wrote about alienation, but instead are Uber Eats delivery drivers, call centre workers, flight attendants on low-cost airlines, nurses in mediocre hospitals, and so on.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#165

Post by throw1234567891 »

denkmoon wrote: post #133
throw1234567891 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. Since when "typing" implies "solving challenging problems with your own skill and creativity". The "solving" and the "creativity" happen in your head while "typing" is a manual labor. I can contemplate multiple problems at the same time but I can only type one thing at a time. Writing code is like 10% of my programming job. I take an LLM to do the typing for me any day. I still solve challenging problems. Becaus…

You must truly have no love for your craft if you see "manually" writing code as _just_ typing. That's like calling writing a novel just dragging ink over paper.

Yeah, sure. We both know it’s not black and white. Like all of you write rocket ship software. You’re all funny. Heads too far up your asses. What fucking craft are you talking about “implement this html and css exactly like described in the ticket”, or “write this deployment pipeline for that client for the 50th time”, or “implement authentication for the 15th time this year”. Really fucking novel stuff. Craft my ass.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#166

Post by Teever »

undeveloper wrote: post #97
StevenWaterman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happens if the checks stop rolling Late 18th century France

in a post gun warfare world where the state has weapons far exceeding what is legal or really possible for a organized militia to hold this is a pipe dream. muskets used to be state of the art.

The last few years have proven that it is quite trivial to take out a high value target with a drone.

The fact that it isn’t routine is a testament to how accepting people are of the status quo.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#167

Post by throw1234567891 »

mplanchard wrote: post #128
throw1234567891 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. Since when "typing" implies "solving challenging problems with your own skill and creativity". The "solving" and the "creativity" happen in your head while "typing" is a manual labor. I can contemplate multiple problems at the same time but I can only type one thing at a time. Writing code is like 10% of my programming job. I take an LLM to do the typing for me any day. I still solve challenging problems. Becaus…

It feels to me more like the way doing math on paper does.

Yeah, you do it every day for money, right? And someone is paying you for that? Dude, people designed ships, aircrafts, the shuttle with a ruler and a pencil, today people use CAD and CFD because it’s cheaper and better but people still know how to use the ruler and pencil! At least those who want to know, know. But not everything has to be designed with the ruler and the pencil. Be the guy who presses buttons, and knows how to use the ruler and the pencil!

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#168

Post by [deleted] »

denkmoon wrote: post #129
bayarearefugee wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are you saying, you want to type? Nah, they want to think beyond the superficial prompting level. A lot of real programmers feel exactly the same. It is hard to notice this sometimes on HN because this site is rife with the very idea-man-VC-pilled-finance-bro-pseudo-hackers that over the past 15-20 years have turned the tech industry from one of optimism for a brighter future to one that most normal people now…

Exactly. I work on line of business stuff, not curing world hunger or reinventing the train. One of the few sources of joy in the job is the brain teaser/puzzle of understanding clever bits of code and writing it too. Now you can just shit out massive volumes of basic code that does the job, which is all you really need for a standard corporate software product, and it can do it multiple times faster than I can so I…

[deleted]

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#169

Post by throw1234567891 »

denkmoon wrote: post #129
bayarearefugee wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are you saying, you want to type? Nah, they want to think beyond the superficial prompting level. A lot of real programmers feel exactly the same. It is hard to notice this sometimes on HN because this site is rife with the very idea-man-VC-pilled-finance-bro-pseudo-hackers that over the past 15-20 years have turned the tech industry from one of optimism for a brighter future to one that most normal people now…

Exactly. I work on line of business stuff, not curing world hunger or reinventing the train. One of the few sources of joy in the job is the brain teaser/puzzle of understanding clever bits of code and writing it too. Now you can just shit out massive volumes of basic code that does the job, which is all you really need for a standard corporate software product, and it can do it multiple times faster than I can so I…

You can also find a lot of pleasure in figuring out how to make it spit out less code of higher quality.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#170

Post by throw1234567891 »

defgeneric wrote: post #124
throw1234567891 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. Since when "typing" implies "solving challenging problems with your own skill and creativity". The "solving" and the "creativity" happen in your head while "typing" is a manual labor. I can contemplate multiple problems at the same time but I can only type one thing at a time. Writing code is like 10% of my programming job. I take an LLM to do the typing for me any day. I still solve challenging problems. Becaus…

In many cases the really key idea that transforms the overall system design comes from working closely on the specific implementation details. Maybe you don't redesign the system this time, but you saw how you might do it, and you get ideas about how to do it the next time. The craft involves a back-and-forth between different levels of abstraction, and cutting that link does feel like we're sacrificing something.

Assuming that you have the budget signed off by the client. Otherwise it’s just procrastination. Or… you are just paid to type!
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