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Feeling Sad about AI

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Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#121

Post by onei »

qarl wrote: post #55
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.

As someone who has worked in both the game industry and the film industry - tell your son this: When you are passionate about your work - it comes at a serious price. We live in capitalism and so everything has its cost. Passion in the workplace is taken-advantage of by the corporation. Sure, maybe there are a few places. Maybe more at the beginning of the industry. But by and large you and your skills will be treate…

What was it like to work in the film industry, presumably as a software developer? I've heard lots of anecdotes about the games industry, but nothing whatsoever about working on a film.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#122

Post by asdfman123 »

nayroclade wrote: post #96
fidotron wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't believe the AI boosters were right. Not even sure they can believe it. The AI field has known, but repeatedly ignored, that the knowledge work group would end up first on the chopping block, especially for those where everything they touch is digitally encoded already. I used to joke that we're all really in trouble when robots can sort out your socks, but as of about a year ago I started seeing disturbing…

I don't think it was ever ignored that knowledge workers would be the first affected by AI. I remember hearing for a long time that lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc. would all be obsoleted by AI. I do think many (including me) were surprised that software engineering would be the first kind of knowledge work to be successfully automated. We assumed it would be one of the last, because we'd be the industry using AI…

I've always been interested in making my job easier first and solving business problems second :)

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#123

Post by sigbottle »

reenorap wrote: post #48

I feel the opposite of sad, I am very very excited. I love programming and I love technology, but the stuff I'm doing now is beyond what I could not do on my own, and now I'm spending a few hours building complete end-to-end stuff. This is the golden age for builders. I created a fully working house simulator, I made a math test creator for my kids, I fixed up some other side projects that I had and added observabili…

For me, I've honestly never been much of an engineering builder - I'm focused on learning for myself. Which is useful - AI has accelerated that a ton - but it's still bottlenecked by, unfortunately, me.

I should probably look broader...

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#124

Post by swish-mish »

enraged_camel wrote: post #87

>> I think I've felt sad because of the disrespect. For most of my life I have loved programming: I've made it my hobby, my work, my identity. I made it my way of proving I have value, because I can be good at something, and improve at something, and it is useful, and beautiful: you can make cool things, and those things can be made in ways that are like craft or art or science or Maths. Yeah... don't do that. Don't…

> You have to form and then internalize the belief that you are valuable not because you can offer value to others in a material sense, but rather in an intrinsic sense.

Yes I’m sure you’re empty stomach will be greatly comforted by your “intrinsic sense of value”.

> Your thoughts and perspectives are unique to you. That is your real value.

Every snowflake is unique. It doesn’t make them valuable. It doesn’t stop me from blasting them with a snow blower when they’re deemed inconvenient and in the way.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#125

Post by willchis »

simonw wrote: post #66

I'm not sure how useful it is to say this, but I think a lot of people (myself included, a few years ago now) have been through this moment of existential crisis and come out the other side. The initial reaction, when some coding agent does a piece of work that would have taken you a week in an hour and does it well , is to be very disheartened by it. Once you come to terms with the idea that translating an exact spe…

This is where I'm at mentally... but also it was quite nice for an army of us to get paid six figure salaries to chug along creating React components and sitting in 3 hour retrospectives ;) The ladder has certainly been raised.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#126

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#127

Post by 0x457 »

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

Maybe it's a golden era for making one-man indie games, but not for playing and selling those games.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#128

Post by Analemma_ »

augment_me wrote: post #56

This points to the bigger issue of people tying their value and identity to their livelihood. There is way too much clout, ego and identity chasing going on in all informational fields. If you instead identified as a parent, as a hobbyist programmer, as a rock climber, as a learner, as a meditator, in essence as anything that is not directly tied to your occupation, you don't have anything to worry or be sad about. T…

This is true as far as it goes but it's very difficult to do that when you're also anxious about material deprivation from losing your job. It's hard enough to construct a new source of self-identity when you're secure, doing it amid the thread of deprivation is even worse (and no, I don't trust the "it'll be ok even if there are mass layoffs because something something UBI" claims, that flies against everything we know about how elites have behaved for all of civilization)

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#129

Post by hdgvhicv »

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.

Best time to be a game programmer was probably the 80s or 90s, when you could make games in your bedroom and they became a hit.

Either then or today, when you can do the same thing and sell them through steam. Today you’ve got more competition but it’s easier to distribute.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#130

Post by w0m »

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.

> He's looking at how it used to be done

I mean, you're probably thinking 30 years ago; not any time recent. Indy devs are still a thing though.

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