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Feeling Sad about AI

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Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#31

Post by urue »

paul7986 wrote: post #27
urue wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lmao this is hilarious. I’m not a SWE (I’m retired) but this idea that hurrrr durr - if SWE’s are fked so is everyone else! No this is wrong - it may hurt your ego but get over it. What software is and what software engineers do is pretty unique compared with other industries and what workers do. And it just so happens producing software is uniquely suited to llm’s. Moreover much of software will become consolidated…

Any job that requires human working on computers to complete tasks is slowly becoming irrelevant where the computers themselves do the work. How many people now make their living completing tasks on computers?

Let me go ask my brother who works at pwc as a partner - who has yet to lay off a single person in the entire firm since the llm-hype+boom. They’re also hiring more than ever.

You guys are so deluded in your little bubble it’s hilarious.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#32

Post by Quarrelsome »

> I think I've felt sad because of the disrespect.

How is this to do with AI? When were we ever respected as an profession? My career has given me considerable experience of non-technical people in senior positions having limited respect for those with technical skills and running roughshod over their interests. The exceptions to this rule were mostly either theatre or a fortunate consequence of people like us getting into those senior roles. That's not even beginning to count all the masses incapable of perceiving us. Consider the outpouring of hatred for AI over artists and the scant sympathy for any of us.

The sorrow is mostly the status quo returning in typical money driven orgs. If you read stories of the 80s then technical staff were incredibly poorly treated and paid and those voices will rise again, empowered by their hubris and slop.

The only positive is now its easier to replicate the conditions of those orgs as you don't need to shell out over $100k per annum for a dev, given that these tools are considerably cheaper. This means we could compete with those forces without needing their pockets. We could even collaborate and somewhat destroy all those companies.

However we wont because we're more interested in little puzzle boxes and arguing at great length about what something should be called until finally agreeing upon one of the very worst options.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#33

Post by pram »

datakan wrote: post #16

My son told me yesterday he wants to program video games for a living. He's 13. He's looking at how it used to be done and seeing the pride people had in doing it. He hasn't seen how it is now. Not sure I have the heart to tell him how terrible the industry has become. Feels like telling a kid 30 years ago that being an astronaut is pointless because they no longer go to the moon.

IDK man it’s a golden era for one-man indie games right now (I just finished Endacopia) and that can only increase with AI assistance. I wouldn’t be too cynical about it

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#34

Post by cmrdporcupine »

juiceland wrote: post #7

Overpaid techies learning they’re still just as much a means to the capital class’ ends as the factory workers whose jobs the US shipped to lower wage countries. Class consciousness y’all. You’re smart enough to Marx and Piketty so do it.

Right now it's almost inverse of this though.

I'm sitting here with DeepSeek 4.1 Flash, paying pennies to hammer out on projects that I have wanted to do for years but no employer would pay me to do. And should those pennies become difficult to spend or the API taken away from me, I have a DGX Spark on my desk I can run local models on to get the same thing done, just slower.

It's somewhat the opposite of the concentration of the ownership of the means of production that the old bearded man spoke of. (And I do like my Marx, honestly).

That said, yes, this does have the effect of potentially devaluing the work generally and droppings its compensation rates. Though I'm not sure we've hit that yet. So far places I've been working just pay me the same to get more done.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#35

Post by asdfman123 »

uraloser wrote: post #12
asdfman123 wrote: post #6

I feel like this is a rational response. Personally, while I'm becoming increasingly convinced there's going to be a wave of SWE layoffs, another part of me doesn't grasp it yet. I don't feel it. I was an AI skeptic for a while but it's literally doing my job for me right now. Every month it needs less of my help. Once they replace SWEs, they're going to turn around and replace every other knowledge worker yet. But m…

Some people are sad others are very happy

The problem is that in an AI powered future, there is no elite class.

In every regime in history, elites have been a threat to state power, but needed to keep things running.

If the state can run itself, you don't need elites anymore.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#36

Post by bsoqk »

flyingshelf wrote: post #24

This is basically me in 2026. Life has no meaning and I'm waiting for my money to run out before I end it. Hopefully I can find a job that doesn't bore me but I'm not positive.

It’s interesting to me that people find so much meaning in their jobs. To me work is just the means to obtain the money I need to actually live my life.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#37

Post by kenjackson »

Good essay. The author seems to recognize his hypocrisy and why there won't be a lot of sympathy from society.

As someone who wrote his first program in 1980, I've actually been really excited about AI. This morning I already wrote two web apps for my kids. I was never a web developer, so I most of the dev work I did was in the service of backends or low level stuff -- but I rarely ever connected it to anything I could use day to day.

Now I write programs daily that I use. An example from this morning, my son is working through a workbook, but the answers are all on one page, but its hard to look at an answer and not see other answers. So I made a simple web page where you give the problem number and it gives you the answer. Super simple, but ended up being exactly what he needed. I'm finding that I'm just crafting up these 5 minute to 60 minute projects several times per day. Things where in the past I'd just say, "too bad" -- now I'm like... "hmm... what does a solution to this look like?!"

So I'm not writing much code any more, but I don't know if I'm having any less fun.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#38

Post by datakan »

pram wrote: post #33
datakan wrote: post #16

My son told me yesterday he wants to program video games for a living. He's 13. He's looking at how it used to be done and seeing the pride people had in doing it. He hasn't seen how it is now. Not sure I have the heart to tell him how terrible the industry has become. Feels like telling a kid 30 years ago that being an astronaut is pointless because they no longer go to the moon.

IDK man it’s a golden era for one-man indie games right now (I just finished Endacopia) and that can only increase with AI assistance. I wouldn’t be too cynical about it

You may be right, I really don't know. I can't control the ocean, all I can do is learn to surf. I use the tools, bring home the check and go about my life. I just feel terrible for the people following after me who wont get to experience what I did. Maybe it's for the best, maybe not. Time will ultimately tell I suppose.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#39

Post by pixl97 »

urue wrote: post #22
asdfman123 wrote: post #6

I feel like this is a rational response. Personally, while I'm becoming increasingly convinced there's going to be a wave of SWE layoffs, another part of me doesn't grasp it yet. I don't feel it. I was an AI skeptic for a while but it's literally doing my job for me right now. Every month it needs less of my help. Once they replace SWEs, they're going to turn around and replace every other knowledge worker yet. But m…

Lmao this is hilarious. I’m not a SWE (I’m retired) but this idea that hurrrr durr - if SWE’s are fked so is everyone else! No this is wrong - it may hurt your ego but get over it. What software is and what software engineers do is pretty unique compared with other industries and what workers do. And it just so happens producing software is uniquely suited to llm’s. Moreover much of software will become consolidated…

>- if SWE’s are fked so is everyone else!

- Technical writers: It will never be me.

[Oh no, it was me]

- Graphics designers: It will never be me.

[Oh no, it was me]

- SWE: It will never be me.

[Oh no, it was me]

- everybody else: Haha, Idiots, it will never be me. <- We are here.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#40

Post by hax0ron3 »

I enjoy working on personal projects, but I have never enjoyed coding in professional contexts, so AI doesn't actually reduce my level of enjoyment at work at all. It actually increases my level of enjoyment, since it does a good job of handling what to me are the most boring aspects of professional coding: writing boilerplate, remembering nuances of language syntax and APIs, etc... and allows me to focus on what to me is more interesting: architecture, ideas, business strategy, etc.
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