Your argument boils down to: it’s different this time.
Did you read it? The argument boils down to: this is exactly the same as other times. And provides multiple examples.
He literally did not provided multiple examples of such a thing.
Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
51–60 of 272 posts
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#52> The demand for software most certainly has an upper limit. No, it does not. There is no ceiling for complexity.
>> The demand for software most certainly has an upper limit.
> No, it does not. There is no ceiling for complexity.
There's an upper limit on everything. Maybe there's no ceiling on incidental complexity for s/ware development, but there sure as shit a ceiling on the essential complexity.
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#53>Agents used to be bad at this kind of stuff in my workplace as well, but newer models + agent-friendly documentation + AGENT.md begging agents to read the fucking docs before coding changed this landscape for us here.
Wouldn't that be true for humans as well? If you have documentation explaining a rule and you read it, you may not need to reach out to coworkers.
Otherwise I think the author's concerns are 100% valid.
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#54AI maximalism is making a lot of assumptions that I think are not a given * The curve of AI improvement will continue at the current pace * AI companies will have the capital continue to expand infrastructure * there will be some kind of functioning economy if all knowledge workers are replaced There are strong headwinds to all three of these. Hey it may come to pass but it’s very speculative at this point. I see a l…
> * The curve of AI improvement will continue at the current pace
Frontier AI is already good enough to be very useful for engineering. It's too costly for many places where it could be useful today.
The cost for the same quality of output is going to drop at least 10x over the next 18-24 months.
And likely again in the following 18-24 months.
At the same time, the cost per watt is going to down ~25%, and at the same time speed will increase (also valuable since time is money).
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#55> > This anonymous article is likely more FUD from the AI industry. "Just give up,you can't beat the machine. Please go quietly, we want to take your place and it's easier for everybody if you don't resist because you believe it's pointless" > > So blog with single post hyping LLMs. Oh and the domain name "human-in-the-loop". Call me suspicious. > If after reading what I just said in the reply above you still think I…
> This anonymous article is likely more FUD from the AI industry.
Literally today I got like 4 AI ads literally mocking "old people still using excel", trying shame and insecure people into some AI whatever product.
This is literally the first technology that is trying to scare and mock me into using it. All it actually does is that I am growing to hate it, honestly along with tech industry itself. Which I used to like.
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
does it never? seems to me that people pay me precisely for my knowledge, learned over many years. The knowledge translates into action, sure. But thats like the old parable about a plumber being paid €150 for a 5 minute consult that involves turning a single screw. "i could have turned that screw!" the customer cries, ignoring that yes, they could have. But they didn't know to. I think perhaps the problem is instead…
There's a good chance the apprentice plumber could've fixed it just as quickly. That's where we are now.
right. Apprentices will always grow, and so too must you, if you want to keep being paid. Their job is to come with new tools and new ideas, and your job is to keep a wider view into what you're doing and why, maintaining trust (you need to build the authority to tell apprentices no when their ideas might flood the customer's house), and keep moving towards other parts of the business and solving harder problems (working with sales, hiring, etc to manage customers and apprentices). AI will not build authority for you.
If your argument is that the customer themselves could use an AI or whatever to learn plumbing, that was always an option (libraries, google, youtube). They pay you so they don't have to worry about flooding their house (or at least have someone else to blame).
They might be able to "one shot" simple fixes that you might previously have assigned to an apprentice, but believe me, AIs are not about to start doing complex things for the layman that actually required seniors previously in either programming or plumbing, because very few of those things were just "type better into a computer". (build trust, speak confidently, know what doesn't work, take responsibility, test without breaking systems, communicate and work together with other professionals, have opinions)
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#57I've had quite a few conversations and read many thoughts on the subject of job security in the software industry through the years. New technologies, various crisis and crashes, just age , incoming "hordes" of less prepared developers, or whatever. If I had to highlight the one thing all those conversations had in common it would be precisely this: I thought that having this knowledge would set me apart And it never…
This is the old China fallacy.
"Oh, we'll just ship production to China, and do the design and marketing in US, this is where the real value is anyway, China will never be able to do design and marketing as well as we do".
Literally same thing:
"Oh, we'll just let LLMs code, and we'll just do Taste. LLMs will never be able to do Taste"
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#58I strongly agree with the author replies. I cannot grasp the reasonment of those who underestimate the power of these tools and their growing potential. We should remember that the outside world care about things that work, not about how good they are inside sadly.
The outside world doesn't even care that things work, they care that it looks like it works long enough. Investors don't care that it's snake oil, as long as they're not left holding the bag. AI is really good at making things that look like they work. This is a steelman of your argument.
Well yes. This has been the history of the web. Frontpage generated really crappy code but people still used it to create websites. They didn't care about code quality just how it looked.
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#59I've had quite a few conversations and read many thoughts on the subject of job security in the software industry through the years. New technologies, various crisis and crashes, just age , incoming "hordes" of less prepared developers, or whatever. If I had to highlight the one thing all those conversations had in common it would be precisely this: I thought that having this knowledge would set me apart And it never…
I think in the future, those who succeed will be equivalent to wayfinders. People who _can_ see the wood for the trees, and are able to understand multiple (sometimes conflicting) requirements and work out a way through that solves the problems that arise, for all involved parties. An understanding of domain, the ability to communicate effectively and a mind that can think laterally, will all be vital.
In a perfect world, yes. However, the current tech world is akin to a flea market. Those who shout out more stand out more.
Re: Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post
#60I've had quite a few conversations and read many thoughts on the subject of job security in the software industry through the years. New technologies, various crisis and crashes, just age , incoming "hordes" of less prepared developers, or whatever. If I had to highlight the one thing all those conversations had in common it would be precisely this: I thought that having this knowledge would set me apart And it never…
I think in the future, those who succeed will be equivalent to wayfinders. People who _can_ see the wood for the trees, and are able to understand multiple (sometimes conflicting) requirements and work out a way through that solves the problems that arise, for all involved parties. An understanding of domain, the ability to communicate effectively and a mind that can think laterally, will all be vital.
> I think in the future, those who succeed will be equivalent to wayfinders.
In the future, those who succeed will be the owners of capital.