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LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

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Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#141

Post by rvz »

simon84 wrote: post #62
jalev wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately every software related industry is embracing LLM/Codegen. Your banks, fintechs, insurance. Everyone. Your concerns are the same I'm having, yet it's regularly dismissed or hand-waved away as "don't worry about it the delivery velocity/ROI is worth it"

It's not so much about velocity or quality, both of which LLM do (or will) provide. The real question is about accountability and liability. When a major data leak is going to happen, who will they sue or fire ? That is the value engineers provide. They understand, confirm, and take ownership.

> When a major data leak is going to happen, who will they sue or fire ? That is the value engineers provide. They understand, confirm, and take ownership.

This goes for serious incidents, disasters, outages and security breaches.

If there was an investigation and the answer was "a piece of software was vibe coded with AI" why would anyone trust the software vendor after that?

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#142

Post by genxy »

deanc wrote: post #120
t34t34r43 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting this under a burner so I don't dox myself: I work in FinTech on a regulated product. We have access to Mythos. Mythos identified part of our codebase that it confidently asserted was not complaint with a particular regulation and we were at grave risk by allowing it to operate the way it was. Except this was not the case, it had of course hallucinated what the regulation actually required (I know this because…

I've worked on projects in the airline and health industry which are highly regulated too. The regulations can be incredibly difficult to process and implement, and make sure you adhere to everything correctly. I've been involved in multiple scenarios where people have made false assertions about compliance or lack of. I'd still place a bet that the SOA models make _far_ less mistakes than humans.

They might make fewer mistakes, but they aren't evenly distributed. They don't use logic when making mistakes, it is gaps in the training data and now large of a span they have to bridge in the latent space. Just as they aren't smart like humans, they aren't stupid like humans. Don't mistake rate for quality.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#144

Post by genxy »

simon84 wrote: post #62
jalev wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately every software related industry is embracing LLM/Codegen. Your banks, fintechs, insurance. Everyone. Your concerns are the same I'm having, yet it's regularly dismissed or hand-waved away as "don't worry about it the delivery velocity/ROI is worth it"

It's not so much about velocity or quality, both of which LLM do (or will) provide. The real question is about accountability and liability. When a major data leak is going to happen, who will they sue or fire ? That is the value engineers provide. They understand, confirm, and take ownership.

Don't worry, we can throw in all in 55 gallon drums and dump it over a cliff when the time comes.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#145

Post by Lionga »

viapivov wrote: post #77

I wonder how do people use LLMs so it does not hallucinates. Like 90% of the time the code is impeccable, but the remaining 10%... Let's say I determine the expertise by how well do people act of these 10%. For me, the first pillar is still there, but not in a good condition

Easy just add "Make no mistakes" to the proompt, clear skill issue.

In reality people who use LLMs so it does not hallucinate are the ones that just have to little knowledge to actually see when it does, because LLMs do and they always will. That is the only thing you can get with a stochastic word predictor.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#146

Post by juleiie »

techblueberry wrote: post #137
juleiie wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds more like a problem of close minded narrow focus on economic output instead of culture, virtue and spiritual traditions. AI is fundamentally an equivalent to slave economy . Cheap, plentiful workforce. This time ethically neutral. You either get Greece or Rome. I’d prefer Greece but it will probably be Rome. From the past we can predict the future.

> That sounds more like a problem of close minded narrow focus on economic output instead of culture, virtue and spiritual traditions. I’m starting to be more sensitive to the argument that without god, people are unable to have a strong moral foundation. Not for the people expressing creativity in how they fuck, but as a check on those in power.

There has been said so much about it in the past and I always believed it to be true, as an atheist.

I like to think that one of the symptoms is politics becoming really absolutist, idealistic and cultish. You do not debate followers of a different religion. But many topics really becoming kind of a mini religions.

I don’t know for sure though, there are arguments against it too and other factors.

I think substantial amount of people really need some kind of subjective spiritual experience to their life and maybe ignoring that need breeds some maladaptive tendencies

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#147

Post by tines »

gaiagraphia wrote: post #119

There's a certain irony in masters of automation lamenting that their roles are being automated. I wonder whether the jobs their efforts eroded in the past ever got the same thoughts... Programming, logic, etc are skills and toolkits. The optimal state of society is everybody being able to apply them, not just the enlightened compsci caste. There was a time in the past where scribes were paid nice cash for their effo…

You say that the optimal state of society is for everyone to apply programming and logic etc. but the obvious final result of these developments is that no one will.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#148

Post by ilovecake1984 »

lelanthran wrote: post #14

To me looks like, if we're not collectively careful, civilisation will soon be on a path to an evolutionary dead-end. Anything that can replace a deeply experienced s/ware engineer can replace anyone in the employment stack, meaning that only the owners of capital will be left, and they too will soon fade as the economy falls off a cliff and money has no value, because the only value that money has is the value of a…

This is so blinkered and egocentric.

Just because LLMs are good at translating English to code, doesn’t imply they are good at many other jobs.

Coding isn’t that hard, it’s just not enjoyable to most people. The enjoyment has always been the barrier to entry.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#149

Post by sethammons »

dgan wrote: post #64
dominotw wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

funny i was able to do all my taxes this year with ai help and not needing accountant.

Lol thats brave on your part, given that a mistake can cost thousands and you have no accountability (punch!) from an LLM

Your account has no accountability. Do your taxes wrong and the tax payer is liable.

Ask me how I know.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#150

Post by gaiagraphia »

t34t34r43 wrote: post #113
iandanforth wrote: post #18

Wut? I pilot LLMs all day but there's no way in hell I'd agree to be at the helm of a finance product. That first pillar is still there. Maybe the author isn't aware of the impact they have, but I know, with the evidence of reverted PRs, that when I step outside my area of deep knowledge I can no longer call BS on the agents. Our most capable agent, with access to the same kind of distributed systems the author talks…

Posting this under a burner so I don't dox myself: I work in FinTech on a regulated product. We have access to Mythos. Mythos identified part of our codebase that it confidently asserted was not complaint with a particular regulation and we were at grave risk by allowing it to operate the way it was. Except this was not the case, it had of course hallucinated what the regulation actually required (I know this because…

Isn't that a net positive though? (not sure about the cost human and tech cost). I'm guessing that without using Mythos, those conversations would never have been had, and confidence in the compliance of the product would've been lower.

I love using AI tools as casinos. It's epic in helping to forge ideas and kickstart thought processes. You basically have the entirety of world knowledge at your fingertips to have a pint with.

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