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The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

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Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#101

Post by Aperocky »

the_af wrote: post #52
hombre_fatal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree with you. Though something I half-miss is using my own software as I build it to get a visceral feel for the abstractions so far. I've found that testability is a good enough proxy for "nice to use" since I think "nice to use" tends to mean that a subsystem is decoupled enough to cover unexpected usage patterns, and that's an incidental side-effect of testability. One concern I have is that it's gettin…

> But now that signal is even more rubbish. Even readmes and blog posts are becoming worse signals since they don't necessarily showcase your own communication skills anymore nor how you think about problems. Yup. I've spotted former coworkers who I know for a fact can barely write in their native language, let alone in English, working for AWS and writing English-language technical blog posts in full AI-ese. Full of…

It's a strong signal in the negative direction, the best kind of signal really.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#102

Post by the_af »

Aperocky wrote: post #96
the_af wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an engineer, I'm never more excited about this job. How long do you think it'll take for the AI trend to mostly automate the parts of your job that still make you excited? Everyone thinks it won't be them, it will be others that will be impacted. We all think what we do is somehow unique and cannot be automated away by AI, and that our jobs are safe for the time being.

As someone in 99th percentile in terms of token usage, it's super clear to me where the agent will not be able to replace my judgement, two areas: 1. if it exceed the context the agent does random stuff, that are often against simplicity and coherent logical structure. 2. LLM has zero intention, and rely on you to decide what to build and more importantly not build. As such, I'm the limit of the numbers of concurrent…

Playing devil's advocate here, I'm not antagonizing you but thinking out loud.

> if it exceed the context the agent does random stuff, that are often against simplicity and coherent logical structure.

That's a current technical limitation. Are you so sure it won't be overcome in the near/mid future?

> LLM has zero intention, and rely on you to decide what to build and more importantly not build

But work is being done to even remove or automate this layer, right? It can be hyperbole (in fact, it is) but aren't Anthropic et al predicting this? Why wouldn't your boss, or your boss' boss, do this instead of you? If they lack the judgment currently, are you so sure they cannot gain it, if they don't have to waste time learning how to code? If not now, what about soon-ish?

> At this current year and date, the AI does not automate me in anyway

Not now, granted. But what about soon? In other words, shouldn't you be worried as well as excited?

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#103

Post by mattmanser »

xienze wrote: post #81
Steppphennn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't LLMs and agents progress further to do this software engineering job better than an actual software engineer? Because a machine can never take accountability. If a software engineer throughout the entire year has been directing AI with prompts that created weaker systems then that person is on the chopping block, not the AI. Compared to another software engineer who directed prompts to expand the system a…

> Because a machine can never take accountability. A business leader can though. > Compared to another software engineer who directed prompts to expand the system and generate extra revenue streams. I think you're missing the point. Why can't an LLM advance sufficiently to be a REAL senior software engineer that a business person/product manager is prompting instead of YOU, a software engineer? Why are YOU specifical…

You can say this about every single role.

Why can't VCs feed your pitch deck into an AI and get a business they own 100%?

If the only thing you're paying for is compute time...

Some.people are claiming it's about taste. Why can't an AI learn taste?

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#104

Post by Gagarin1917 »

mrdependable wrote: post #90

I think the reason AI isn't going to replace CEOs, or anyone in the C suite, is pretty obvious. They see themselves as the company. Everyone else is a resource. AI is here to replace resources, just like investing in a brand new lawn mower. For them, replacing an executive with AI is like saying you're going to marry a broom.

I think the more likely reason would be that legally someone needs to be in charge of the business.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#105

Post by jandrewrogers »

xienze wrote: post #69
guzfip wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's why I just can't understand the mindset of software engineers who are giddy about this brave new world. There really is nothing special about your expertise that an LLM can't achieve, theoretically. They’re stupid or they’re already set up for success. The general ideas seems to be generalists are screwed, domain experts will be fine.

> domain experts will be fine But I don't see how this holds up to even the slightest amount of scrutiny. We're literally training LLMs to BE domain experts.

An enormous amount of domain expertise is not legible to LLMs. Their dependence on obtaining knowledge through someone else's writing is a real limitation. A lot of human domain expertise is not acquired that way.

They still have a long way to go before they can master a domain from first principles, which constrains the mastery possible.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#106

Post by ej88 »

xienze wrote: post #63
ej88 wrote: post #21

I am personally of the opinion that ML will end up being 'normal technology', albeit incredibly transformative. I think you can combine 'Incanters' and 'Process Engineers' into one - 'Users'. Jobs that encompass a role that requires accountability will be directing, providing context, and verifying the output of agents, almost like how millions of workers know basic computer skills and Microsoft Office. In my opinion…

> Hence why I've been quite bullish on software engineering (but not coding). You can easy set up 1) and 2) on contrived or sandboxed coding tasks but then 3) expands and dominates the rest of the role. Why can't LLMs and agents progress further to do this software engineering job better than an actual software engineer? I've never seen anyone give a satisfactory answer to this. Especially the part about making mista…

It's not about whether they make mistakes (they do! although the exact definition of a mistake is nuanced), but whether they can take accountability if the software fails and millions are lost or people die. A large part of the premium paid on software engineers is to take accountability for their work. If a "business person" directs their agent to build some software and takes accountability -- congrats! They are also now a software engineer :)

The lines between a software engineer / business person / product / design and everything else will blur, because AI increases the individual person's leverage. I posit that there will be more 'software engineers' in this new world, but also more product people, more business people, more companies in general.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#107

Post by ej88 »

xienze wrote: post #81
Steppphennn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't LLMs and agents progress further to do this software engineering job better than an actual software engineer? Because a machine can never take accountability. If a software engineer throughout the entire year has been directing AI with prompts that created weaker systems then that person is on the chopping block, not the AI. Compared to another software engineer who directed prompts to expand the system a…

> Because a machine can never take accountability. A business leader can though. > Compared to another software engineer who directed prompts to expand the system and generate extra revenue streams. I think you're missing the point. Why can't an LLM advance sufficiently to be a REAL senior software engineer that a business person/product manager is prompting instead of YOU, a software engineer? Why are YOU specifical…

> A business leader can though.

If a 'business leader' is prompting out software through their agents, ensuring it works, maintaining it, and taking accountability... they're also a software engineer

These titles are mostly semantics

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#109

Post by pardon_me »

righthand wrote: post #77
siliconc0w wrote: post #39

The problem with AI is that it isn't like any previous technology. There may be temporary jobs to fill in the gaps but they won't be careers. The AI will do the process engineering and self optimization. The prompt witchcraft is a good example because today its totally unnecessary and doesn't actually increase performance, and they'll continue to make it easier to direct/steer the models. We're literally trying to bu…

We?

The human species. "We" doesn't include everyone and doesn't necessarily imply the process happens through collaboration and planning (conspiracy). The race to automation is happening as expected; outside any group control and bound by competition. Game theory suggests the end result is us being replaced, if we make it that far. "We" as a species are the ones making it happen.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: New Jobs

#110

Post by mrdependable »

Gagarin1917 wrote: post #104
mrdependable wrote: post #90

I think the reason AI isn't going to replace CEOs, or anyone in the C suite, is pretty obvious. They see themselves as the company. Everyone else is a resource. AI is here to replace resources, just like investing in a brand new lawn mower. For them, replacing an executive with AI is like saying you're going to marry a broom.

I think the more likely reason would be that legally someone needs to be in charge of the business.

That's true, too. I guess we will see if executive pay and credentials start going down. They could technically have AI make all the decisions while someone just plays the patsy.
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