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What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

siepr.stanford.edu

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Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#101

Post by IshKebab »

ballsac wrote: post #27
simonw wrote: post #2

A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in late November, which for most people meant early January due to the December break. General agents (OpenClaw, Anthropic Copilot, ChatGPT "Work") started working even later than that. This category of software may have a much more meaningful impact on work than the mostly-chat systems we were using…

> A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in 2026? 5? 4? 3? Heard this one way too many times.

I haven't. Around the start of 2026 is pretty widely mentioned as when they went from "this is broken slop" to "huh this is actually 90% what I would have written", which matches my experience.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#102

Post by IshKebab »

01100011 wrote: post #11
simonw wrote: post #2

A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in late November, which for most people meant early January due to the December break. General agents (OpenClaw, Anthropic Copilot, ChatGPT "Work") started working even later than that. This category of software may have a much more meaningful impact on work than the mostly-chat systems we were using…

This. Also I'm finding out that, after being blown away by agent mode lately, non-agent mode still kind of sucks across frontier models. Using GPT and Gemini in non-agent mode is asking for inaccurate information confidently presented as the truth. Turning on agent mode fixed a lot of that for me.

I think it's because of the lack of feedback. Humans also can't do much without feedback. E.g. I doubt most people could write 100 lines of code that works first time without even compiling it once.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#105

Post by TeriyakiBomb »

cowanon77 wrote: post #39
ballsac wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in 2026? 5? 4? 3? Heard this one way too many times.

It seems to be true this time though; I have observed it myself and heard it from several experienced developers I personally know and respect. It feels like some threshold was crossed with Opus 4.5 and Gpt 5.3, where the models are now able to reliably solve certain classes of problems that were previously unreliable. Time will tell of course, and it’s early, but inflection points do exist with progress.

Thing is. You can find an extremely similar paragraph written about Claude 4.x or some equivalent gpt. And simultaneously, many people expressing their frustration and the shortcomings of

“But it’s different this time” - several people, several times over the last couple of years.

This is not at all a dig at you, I’m very sorry if it reads that way. My point is these things only get truly better in anecdotes. The ways in which they fail is yet to change. Just yesterday I had gpt 5.3 generate completely awful code for the Cinema 4D Python API. Also an anecdote. But for all of the people saying they are truly intelligent and truly reason, they still make obvious mistakes, write around problems, fail entirely at architectural decisions, fail at random, generate FAR too much code.

And no amount of harnesses, methodologies, loops make much of a difference. If you listen to people on the internet they say it’s all working. You listen to people on the job and they mostly say it’s creating tech debt and a review bottleneck. Also burnout, so much burnout.

I think LLMs are mediocre. I think it’s fine they’re mediocre. You can work with low expectations. But the hype cycles are so tiresome.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#106

Post by TeriyakiBomb »

simonw wrote: post #55
bluefirebrand wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of it is real and how much of it is people just being worn down by the hype to the point they can't fight it anymore Very smart people aren't immune to being worn down over time

I really don't think that's how it works. Smart, experienced developers who thought coding agents were junk for most of 2025 and think they're useful now in 2026 are not saying that because they got "worn down over time".

It tends to be when the training data wanders into their area of expertise temporarily and they go “OMG, they hype is real. I was so wrong” and then a few releases later they’re on the train and furious that the skills in their domain space have not just stopped improving, but regressed. Cue someone else in a different part of the world starting the same cycle.

Meanwhile the guy who leaned in a year ago and gave up reading the output is beginning to see work grind to a halt and throwing more agents at it is increasingly not working.

You can see these tropes all over social media near constantly.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#107

Post by janussunaj »

simonw wrote: post #58
ffsm8 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I produce code that is significantly higher quality with the assistance of coding agents, because I no longer succumb to the temptation to cut corners due to lack of time. One example: everything I do is properly tested and documented now, even the most trivial of changes. Previously I would have weighed those tradeoffs and sometimes decided not to bother with the tests because they weren't worth the time.

> because I no longer succumb to the temptation to cut corners due to lack of time

No offense, but that says much more about the way you approach programming than about the quality of LLM outputs.

In my experience, LLMs are the ultimate corner-cutting tool. With LLMs, I now succumb to the temptation to cut corners, build something I haven't properly researched and don't fully understand, prioritize shipping quantity over quality.

Without LLMs, I have to understand the domain and the tools and ultimately my full solution (with all its warts and limitations). When I really care about the project and consider it "my baby", LLMs are out of the picture.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#108

Post by js8 »

bluecheese452 wrote: post #22
nicce wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like all companies think that their products are good enough and can’t offer more, as they always want to remove people instead of offering better and bigger products.

At some point your issue tracker or text editor is done. No need for it to automatically schedule your haircut as well.

Emacs is far from done. Scheduling things from it are already a feature, in the org-mode.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#109

Post by noosphr »

cmenge wrote: post #95
ballsac wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in 2026? 5? 4? 3? Heard this one way too many times.

I guess it's important who one hears this from. I just spoke to a fried who is a headhunter and who's been trying to automate his processes for a while (he likes to fiddle and certainly has skills, but he's not an engineer). He kept trying, but it just wasn't good enough. Now he said with GPT Work and Sol, it worked, but the key point is: all of it suddenly worked. The problem was one of reliability, of handling edge…

Again I've heard this since 2022 when gpt3.5 came out.

This is like microprocessors in the 80s. Sure they double in capability every 18 months but the start is so pathetic it will be 30 years before they are good enough for everyday tasks.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#110

Post by qwerpy »

ben_w wrote: post #85
ballsac wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in 2026? 5? 4? 3? Heard this one way too many times.

I get the point having read much the same from Tesla (and fans) regarding self driving cars that still haven't done half the things that Musk said was just around the corner pending regulators a decade ago and repeatedly since then. And myself I keep making comparisons between AI and the progress in 90s video games where every minor improvement got called "photo realistic" and then forgotten with the next game engine…

I’m probably illustrating your point but as a FSD fan it really got ”good enough” recently with version 14. The tipping point was suddenly, much more often than not, it can drive end to end from start (my garage) to finish (parked at destination) with no interventions. I can text and watch videos on my phone and as long as I glance up once a minute, it doesn’t complain.

Handling highway driving with lane changes was great when it got there years ago, but just in the last year or so it has gone from a nice to have to “from now on I will never buy a car that can’t do this”.

AI has hit some milestones for replacing work as well. There’s still many more to go and maybe some of them will never get hit (much like I don’t think a coast to coast drive with zero interventions during winter conditions is ever going to happen) but there are points at which it forever meaningfully changes some field of work. I think it’s there for writing code.

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