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Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

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Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#421

Post by daveguy »

orangecat wrote: post #300
tkel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're reducing programming to its utility in producing exchange value in the captitalist political economy. That's what "value" means in this context. That's exactly what I'm pointing out. Programming is more than that, if you can think beyond your current economic constraints. Your life's activity ought to be more than just a tool for producing capitalist exchange value. Does cooking food serve any purpose beyond m…

You're reducing programming to its utility in producing exchange value in the captitalist political economy. Well, yes? If you want to write code that isn't useful to anyone and just gives you warm fuzzies, go for it. I've done plenty of that. But it's exceptionally selfish to try to forbid technological improvements so that you can get paid to work exactly how you want to. Does cooking food serve any purpose beyond…

Rapid, empty, and poorly integrated code that appears to work but no one bothers to understand is much less valuable than everyone seems to believe.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#422

Post by somenameforme »

dofm wrote: post #274
somenameforme wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're being gloomy so much as realistic. It's clear a lot of people either don't realize what's already happened, or are in some sort of denial about it. What you're saying is entirely true and was almost certainly also true during past eras of revolutionary leaps in technology. Fortunately in current times we have far more options than we did in the past, but realizing those options takes a bit of adv…

I have taught/lectured the odd thing in my past and I can do it; I come from a family of teachers and it is in the blood. I do not have the psychological constitution to teach kids so I am not going to do that. But teaching/training adults is an industry that AI will destroy because the baseline income — the stuff nobody else wanted to do but you could earn from — will be eliminated, increasingly by policy directives…

Well there's a world of difference between teaching a 7 year old and teaching a 17 year old. I would say in both regards a more engaging style may be necessary than what you're possibly alluding to, so there is that. Depending on your background, teaching in a university is also completely viable. There's also the private lessons possibility. There's many options and I definitely wouldn't just write it off.

I don't think AI will touch education. A good case study there is Khanmigo which was to be Khan Academy's revolutionary AI tutor. There's been a million articles written about the topic. It completely failed, in spite of receiving massive sponsorship and imposition in various educational settings. And I'm kind of surprised that Khan himself didn't understand or predict this. As you probably know, great intrinsically motivated students don't really need teachers. You could give them a book or a sort of LLM tutor, and they'd excel completely independently. But then there are the other 95% of students you have to consider.

And those other 95% tend to fall into camps of either being a bit less gifted in the cognitive domain, or lacking motivation. Depending on exactly where they stand on the balance of two, a good teacher can have a huge impact, whereas 'go learn with the LLM for a few hours' would have them tune out instantly. It's because teaching isn't just about literally teaching, but about forming a rapport and trying to gradually push those 95% into more of the habits and patterns of the 5%, but without them realizing they're being pushed in that direction. An LLM there is almost entirely nonsensical.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#424

Post by josebmneto »

glimshe wrote: post #3

We are going from the era of manual, line-by-line mental model transcription to one where software engineers can focus on data structures, software architecture and algorithms. I love being able to quickly bring out the program that is already running in my head without having to worry about the grind of typing it into a format that the compiler understands. Dealing with API names. Syntax. Language quirks. Library go…

Kinda agree with this. And your point is valid for most of the problems that we solve today as software engineers.

However, you cannot forget that there are problems where - all the knowledge of - AI don't help. Problems where letting AI do the work for you means putting more time and effort than doing yourself.

Problems where you need to be so precise in your prompt/spec that at that point you're coding in English. But English don't compile.

I like the idea of power tools vs hand tools. AI is a power tool, but that are times that the most pragmatic approach is using a hand tool.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#425

Post by Daishiman »

Planktonne wrote: post #414
Daishiman wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see my org delivering twice as many features and implementing way more tools that actually solve problems. The issue is that doesn’t necessarily mean that customers will pay more, as most of the features of software are not actually core.

Would that really count as a 'massive benefit' then?

For the customers? Yes. For engineers building tools that increase their quality of life? For sure. For removing legacy cruft? Absolutely.
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