What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#661

Post by testerius » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:15 AM UTC

Currently, I have 3 main issues with AI, LLMs and so on. Generally speaking I am happy that I can use Claude Code and Codex to help building, fixing and maintaining software in my job. To be honest it is so helpful, I am less stressed bacause most of the time I can "find out" solution without asking collegues for help or I do not have spend a lot of time struggling myself. Yeah, if you understand what feeling it is that you know you can't solve problem then you will know what I am writing about.

But...

There are exceptions which make me bad feeling about AI, LLMs and so on:

1. Paid, subscribtion based payment model - you have to pay for tokens.

2. Local models are not "ready yet". You still have to own decent hardware and it will not be the same level of frontier models. I am big fan of local first, offline and "unlimited usage" compared to paid solutions. But probably I have to wait few or several years to get to that point.

3. Feeling "I did not do it myself". This is the most what could make bad feel. You "cheated". You did not write this great app or solve problem alone. You just did modern "copy and paste". You did not write or design this class, function alone by hand. And you know you probably could not do it without help of AI, LLM.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#662

Post by CodeCompost » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:18 AM UTC

testerius wrote: post #661

Currently, I have 3 main issues with AI, LLMs and so on. Generally speaking I am happy that I can use Claude Code and Codex to help building, fixing and maintaining software in my job. To be honest it is so helpful, I am less stressed bacause most of the time I can "find out" solution without asking collegues for help or I do not have spend a lot of time struggling myself. Yeah, if you understand what feeling it is t…

  2. Local models are not "ready yet". You still have to own decent hardware and it will not be the same level of frontier models. I am big fan of local first, offline and "unlimited usage" compared to paid solutions. But probably I have to wait few or several years to get to that point.

This is why tech companies are working hard to make sure you can never build your own computer again.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#663

Post by thaumasiotes » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:18 AM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #390

pj_mukh wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"optimistic and enthusiastic about the new messiah" I mean that's you agreeing with Elon Musk, I disagree, I think AI is just normal technology [1], there's a lot of us. Like tech revolutions before, it'll have huge effects on productivity alleviating major scarcities. That's boring to the algorithm, not enough conflict , but it's exciting to a lot of tech workers. No messiah's and no Jihads, just excited about goi…

"Normal tech" puts people out of careers every so often, and kinda randomly. Society has benefited as everyone who isn't put out of a job significantly outnumbers those who are. I was expecting AI to put me, a software developer, out of a job after everyone else , because I thought coders would be needed to write the AI for everyone else, one job task at a time. Right now, it's looking like LLMs can translate not onl…

> But even the first agricultural revolution had a lot of people moving out of the country and to the cities because they could no longer work on the land.

The first agricultural revolution would have been one guy planting seeds with the expectation that edible crops would grow. That led to a huge population boom, but not to cities.

The industrial revolution didn't have the mechanics you're imagining. People left the country for cities because work was available in cities, not because it wasn't available at home. Peasants were always in a constant state of having more labor available than the land they worked required, but that push factor never meant the surplus labor could leave. You can't leave without somewhere to go to.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#664

Post by lelanthran » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:19 AM UTC

mac-mc wrote: post #640

lelanthran wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know a class of tech workers absolutely fired up about the new Industrial Revolution, That's because they're thinking that they're still going to get paid $200k/y for typing in "Duh, Claude, make me an app, here the specs from the client, doh!" They aren't seeing that there is very little value to add when all they are, is an interface to a magic software-making machine.

It's very similar to being an EM, and if you think EMs are useless, the vast majority EMs have decided it's not worth their time to educate you, and the few who have tried to gently probably went over your head.

> It's very similar to being an EM, and if you think EMs are useless,

I don't think EMs are useless, I just think that you are naive if you think that LLMs can't do the EM work as well.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#665

Post by tediousgraffit1 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:21 AM UTC

maybe I'm missing something, I'll admit I haven't made it through the whole smug article, but critiquing knowledge work, especially IT work, just a few years after that field yielded it's...what, fourth?... major contribution to society in the last say 40 years is pretty funny imho.

I'm counting:

1. the pc (80's) 2. the web (90's-early 2000's) 3. the cloud (early 2010s) 4. the computers that speak natural langage (early 2020s)

a big chunk of gdp in the most prosperus nation on earth is dedicated to knowledge work but sure, it's abstract so I guess it doesn't feel as useful.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#666

Post by lelanthran » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:23 AM UTC

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #638

lelanthran wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know a class of tech workers absolutely fired up about the new Industrial Revolution, That's because they're thinking that they're still going to get paid $200k/y for typing in "Duh, Claude, make me an app, here the specs from the client, doh!" They aren't seeing that there is very little value to add when all they are, is an interface to a magic software-making machine.

[flagged]

> Lmao, any one else in favor of adding a coding test to be able to post in the subreddit to keep these non-hackers out

You think I'm a non-hacker?

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#667

Post by Toutouxc » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:27 AM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #120

ComputerPerson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a well-known book that labels programmers as a specific type of pointless job. "Duct tapers" is the category. Also task masters, who would have a foot under the software development umbrella, have space in the book. "Bullshit Jobs" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

We are socially punished for our extremely cushy jobs SWE has negative social value. Saying you’re a SWE or god forbid anything in AI in a dating/courtship context is basically suicide. We are paid so well as compensation for debasing ourselves socially. A lot of normies intuitively understand the concepts in that book even without reading it and either see you as evil or a grifter, maybe both, when you say you work…

There isn’t a word in the comment that I can relate to. Might be a US thing, I’m in Europe.

My [very normal although otherworldly beautiful] wife thinks my job is interesting and talks about me with pride.

When I tell people that I work in IT, they almost never think of FAANG, because these companies aren’t really considered that interesting or important over here. I think it’s uniquely a US thing to conflate “IT” with “SV sociopaths”.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#668

Post by altern8 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:30 AM UTC

I've been trying to figure out how to make money with trading for years (and I _might_ be getting closer, now).

Trading is the only way to make money I can think of where you don't have customers/clients and are truly in control of your own destiny.

But of course it's not that easy.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#669

Post by dinkumthinkum » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:32 AM UTC

notsmarthuh wrote: post #239

MichaelZuo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously there is some latent risk in choosing a career anywhere, that the demand disappears. There can’t literally be zero risk of structural demand changes.

The problem in the Western world is that switching to a different career is made almost impossible. This society pushes people out of the workforce all the time. I'm one of them. I've been "unemployed" since 2012 with apparently ZERO ability to get any kind of skilled job ever again, just due to a "zigged when I should have zagged" situation decades ago.

What are you talking about? Why do you call out "Western world," this seems like the reflexive idea of the left that the West is some brutish downtrodden hellhole. What's weird is what you are describing is the opposite. It is much more common in the West to be able to change your career than in the East, by an enormous margin. In many places in the East, a tremendous amount of career possibilities are removed from kids from tests they take having barely begun puberty. How many Adam Steltzner's do you think there are outside of the West? What are we talking about? As far as your specific situation with 2012, I have no idea but this is not laid at the feet of the Western world.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#670

Post by Matumio » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 7:32 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #633

quijoteuniv wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it better to find out that a lot of corporate work may not have much intrinsic meaning now, rather than just before you die? At least then you get a chance to do something about it. It seems to me these changes are much more daunting if you live in a country where no job means no health insurance, and where the pay gap between skilled and unskilled work is huge. That makes an existential question about work int…

> much intrinsic meaning now work should not be considered to have to have intrinsic meaning for it to be worthwhile - you merely need to make sure your pay is worthwhile. Find intrinsic meaning outside of work. The best way, imho, is to find the highest paying job you can, work super hard and earn maximally, until you built up a nest egg from which you can draw a living off indefinitely. Then, use the remaining time…

No, work is supposed to be at least useful for somebody. Ideally for the society you live in, at least indirectly. If you are wasting your work time, you are also wasting you life time in the same breath. Would you turn every leaf in the forest around twice, if it was the highest paying job? No, because that's a bullshit job.