I think more people being able to create software to solve their needs is good. You're describing egoism, that you aren't special anymore because your identity is based on external validation, that this "hard" thing you do is accessible to anyone now. I don't think that's a good impulse.
Feeling Sad about AI
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Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#72Earlier 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…
Dismissive, uninformed, and in denial is not an attractive combination of traits to have.
Oh here come the boosters!
Bring your facts you plank.
The economy is fine. And will continue to be.
Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#73I'm too sad about recipe sites to empathize.
Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#74I 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…
there are many many jobs that largely consist of sending emails and answering phones all day
Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#75I did well in school and the praise I received for excelling in my math degree did shape my life and impact my motivations. I do like praise. But outside of social reasons, it's understanding I crave. Thoroughly understanding a topic is awesome. I remember the feeling of acing my qualifier exam in grad school. Those LLMs change nothing fundamentally about this motivation and need and capability. I can't type a prompt…
This week I helped a colleague with a bug. He used an LLM to sort it out before telling me about it.
I'm old fashioned, so I looked at the code, saw that it used an old lib and then I searched online for a newer version. Lo and behold, the bug had been ironed out.
AI makes it really easy to not think properly about your task.
Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#76My 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.
If you haven’t already… show him how to use codex or claude or whatever. And let him start having fun and making games.
I got him a ChatGPT account with parental controls on it. I'm just hoping he uses it as a tool and not a crutch.
Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#77Making any external thing one's identity is a recipe for disaster when it goes away.
Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#78I was just having this conversation with someone. It's less sadness for me and more dread though. All of the sudden, everyone's technical expertise and the things that they spent their life getting good at, are accessible by everyone. I don't know if this makes sense as a society. Say whatever about what it means ethically, legally, etc., but I'm not sure this kind of thing is sustainable in the long run for a functi…
It only doesn’t make sense with our current economic framework. I think we need UBI soon or we risk having a massive crisis
Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#79I appreciate the honesty here. He talks about how programming became part of his identity, how being good at it earned him respect, and how it gave him a sense that he was providing something valuable.
But here’s the deal:
1. The world does not give two fucks about our need to feel a certain way. 2. AI is not going anywhere.
The world ultimately cares about the value you provide. I think it’s deeply egotistical to believe that when someone hires you, part of the arrangement is that they’re supposed to preserve your sense of superiority because you possess some skill other people don’t.
For a long time, intelligence and specialized knowledge created scarcity. Increasingly, they don’t. Raw intellectual capability is becoming a commodity, and a lot of the gatekeeping built around it is disappearing.
What matters more now is taste. Judgment. Knowing what is worth building. Having the will to push something valuable into the world. Knowing when something is good, when it isn’t, and what needs to happen next.
I’ve worked with too many people over the years who made terrible decisions for no reason other than that the alternative bruised their ego or threatened their livelihood. Ironically, these were often the same people who prided themselves on being rational and objective. In reality, they were anything but.
That’s one of the things I find so compelling about AI. It strips away a lot of the mythology around being the smartest person in the room and highlights what I’ve always believed matters most:
Did you create value?
Not your identity. Not your status. Not your need to feel special.
The value you actually put into the world.
Re: Feeling Sad about AI
#80Overpaid 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 concent…
Marx did envision the atomization of labor, of individual entrepreneurs selling their own slice of the means of production. I am skeptical that such a system will result in better living conditions for workers. It hasn’t worked for Uber drivers.