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Ask HN: AI writes better code than me. How to keep my identity?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: AI writes better code than me. How to keep my identity?

#21

Post by austin-cheney »

The AI game amplifies programmings biggest problem: maturity.

Simply put there are developers that can write original solutions to challenging problems but most people employed to write software are paid the same and cannot write original solutions. There is a tremendous amount of emotional insecurity once you just barely scratch the surface of employment.

AI substantially amplifies this divide. The people who can write software are in a position to more readily identify the garbage produced by the pretenders using AI while the pretenders become more reliant on AI to produce anti-patterns they cannot recognize.

Case in point I saw one of these this morning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488730

My personal opinion is that AI should replace many developers because many of the people employed to write software should never have been there in the first place. Even when the output of that AI is slop is it really any worse than the human slop from people too terrified to make original decisions?

Re: Ask HN: AI writes better code than me. How to keep my identity?

#24

Post by oliculipolicula »

jdw64 wrote: post #4
diavelguru wrote: post #3

How long have you been working in this field? I ask as if you have numerous years you already know your worth and value irrespective of AI or any other system. If you are still questioning this it indicates to me that you are still in the process of finding yourself and are in the same boat many other folks are in - confronting the existencial crisis of identity as it pertains to work. I suggest do what is necessary…

I'm currently a programmer with 8 years of experience(I've been coding for longer than that, but I started earning money from programming around then.). Some might say that's still short, but honestly, I'm not sure. I became a programmer during the COVID-19 hiring boom, and somehow I've managed to survive. But I'm not really sure what I should be doing next.

What you should be doing next is to pivot your programming skills plus interest in identifying "categorical errors" to help me look for elephants in the room housing all the different "categorical imperatives" :) as a hobby even.

Because my not very adult hunch is that co-existence with one another and nature depends on paying attention to these animals

>Our world relies on outsourcing the production of manufactured and consumer goods to developing nations. But separate from that structural reality, vested interests refusing to acknowledge their faults is an entirely different issue.

[faults= giant problems with deeply held but actionable beliefs]

There seems to be already two different instances of CI in that quote...

To extend/detail on the second one, make it relevant to this website---

What if AI helps to make it easy for "everyone" to build things people want? That doesn't bode well for the climate. If I were one of the local gods I'd rationalise (ie sidestep CI) that by saying that hardware is so hard that maybe only 1% of the population in developed countries would be able attain this kind of (post-)industrial upper middle class [0]

[I tend to see categorical imperatives as a the general way to obtain constraints on action local in spacetime by extrapolating to extreme hypotheticals, more physicist than "edge cases". This is one understated belief that (I feel) silicon valley thought leaders tend to subconsciously share with economists, neuroscientists[1], psychologists, techbros, journalists, rationalists---- but not Wall Street---- the sanity of linear utility. 2]

https://youtu.be/e5O1Y-5phEU

[1] if this come across as a collective but ad hominem, I'm hoping it still looks like a reasonable one ;) anyways i probably damaged my credibility by submitting a neuroscience scam that time (not related to, but reminiscent of Parasma)

[2] I'd even say that you can't renormalise linear utility, just like one "would not be able to renormalise some Hamiltonians" so the reflexive rationalisation [0] fails, if you care to go there

Re: Ask HN: AI writes better code than me. How to keep my identity?

#25

Post by stAInley »

The way through is changing how you think of yourself, not necessarily what you do. At some point in your personal history, you got very good at crawling. Now you're not a crawler, walker or even driver. They're just things you do when needed.

The shift is in how you describe yourself. "I am a coder" places your identity in a function that AI is now performing. Grief, shame, embarrassment, fear comes along with that. "I work as a coder" or "I write code" places it in a behaviour which is something you consciously practice, adapt, change.

Re: Ask HN: AI writes better code than me. How to keep my identity?

#26

Post by bruce511 »

stAInley wrote: post #25

The way through is changing how you think of yourself, not necessarily what you do. At some point in your personal history, you got very good at crawling. Now you're not a crawler, walker or even driver. They're just things you do when needed. The shift is in how you describe yourself. "I am a coder" places your identity in a function that AI is now performing. Grief, shame, embarrassment, fear comes along with that.…

This. Plus I'll add that coding is the lowest point on the IT development ladder.

Just like crawling wasn't the end goal, neither is programming. I know learning how to do it felt great (so did crawling) but there's still a long way to go.

Re: Ask HN: AI writes better code than me. How to keep my identity?

#30

Post by dkowalski »

> Top-tier developers might still outperform AI

That's never been true. It's like saying they are outrunning cars.

Where your expertise is key is when you call out the mistakes it AI and ensuring you are not enabling slop.

In the process, you get to review your stuff you memorized and possibly learning something. Don't focus on "losing competitive edge", but instead bringing your taste to the project and your years of expertise so that the stuff written is coherent and lasting.

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