181–190 of 221 posts
I do believe there's going to be a lot of left-behinds, as a sort-of digital rust belt. Even though, as an industry, we've always been in the business of automating and replacing ourselves, the shift will hit too quick. 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 fir…
I’m close to despondent about how my job has changed. If the next 15 years of my life is just waiting on LLMs, I don’t think I can do it.
I just want you to know that you're not alone. I'm terribly worried about my career as well. I built a large part of my identity around coding in my teens, and working in the industry when I got to my twenties were some of the happiest years of my life. I was laid off from tech around the time that COVID hit, so this predates AI somewhat. I briefly became a contractor, but none of the contracts I was able to secure w…
that’s because they were. They needed to kill the career because we were educated, well off, fulfilled, and becoming organized. Turns out not all of us were either easily manipulated marks or unscrupulous money goblins and that was a problem for them.
Remember when Google employees stood up for what is right against the company? That’s when the powers that be in the industry decided to go all in on AI. They need to destroy the career and industry because we had to much power and intelligence.
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 still want to code, because I enjoy coding. I like the puzzle and the reward when my solutions work. Sure I can code on my own, but there is a joy in working with multiple people of different backgrounds and skillsets. I liked being on a team.
As it currently sits, there is little place for me in the AI driven workplace. It feels like an enormous loss.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 k…
It’s different, because in our field we’re often learning or doing new things, as opposed to merely rehashing the exact same thing we’ve done before. I find it very difficult to learn a new thing by reading it, vs by doing it. And indeed, most mathematicians, who do get paid to do math, work a lot with pencil and paper. If math is secondary to your job, you likely will not, but if it’s your primary job, you likely sp…
The whole point of the discussion about LLMs in our field is exactly what you say. Yes, we do often find ourselves doing new things. They are exciting the first and the second time we do them. Later they become a chore.
When you’re doing something that requires a lot of typing for the 17th time… why! Like, how many times are you going to write that golang http server scaffold. Or, how many times are you going to create that new terraform project with those same modules. I hear people say “oh yeah, write a generator”. To which my answer is: do you have a budget for it, or do I need to invest my own time.
It’s possible to guard the model so that it acts according to your expectations. Just invest the time in that tooling. It’s as exciting as any other problem. You learn the domain by writing software guardrails, your effort results in a software analysis of the business domain problem. It’s a much more valuable and rewarding work than writing some code.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 not coming cus its not possible economically.
I’m close to despondent about how my job has changed. If the next 15 years of my life is just waiting on LLMs, I don’t think I can do it.
It's not just waiting on them, you're going to be reviewing an endless flood of their agentic slop, cajoling or bullying them into sticking with a problem or looking harder for information, all in between glancing at AI summaries of your colleagues' AI generated Slack messages and approving the AI generated auto-replies.
I’m close to despondent about how my job has changed. If the next 15 years of my life is just waiting on LLMs, I don’t think I can do it.
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 snowboard over 100 days a year, spend tons of time with my daughter, walk, write, camp and cook lots of great food.
You’d be shocked how good life can be on ~$20k a year. And you really don’t have to work much to earn that!