111–120 of 237 posts
Whats the rebuttal to UBI just causing massive inflation again?
I've said this before, but the only thing that will convince me that these companies are actually laying people off due to AI will be when they start replacing their leadership staff with it. Until that happens--IMO it's just an excuse to reduce the overhired workforce without tanking their stock.
They are firing leadership. There's a ton of middle managers and high-ranking roles whose jobs are to basically supervise other people. If the people go, they do too.
1. There are fewer new products normal people want to buy, especially in tech.
2. Inflation is making the everyday things people need more expensive.
3. VC money for the most popular products ran out and companies are jacking up prices.
4. Concerns over tech's impact on health is limiting tech use and more negative sentiment.
All of this is causing a slowdown in tech and AI could be the perfect fix:
1. Shiny new product for people to buy.
2. Reduce costs and increase margins right when it's most needed.
3. Justify more investment in the space (super intelligence = best VC investment ever).
4. Solve bread and butter problems in health, education, etc. if safety is prioritized.
My guess is that this need for AI is causing a lot of the tech sector to overestimate how quickly AI will revolutionize things, similar to getting "flying car" predictions right at the top of the automotive s-curve.
I believe AI will have a big impact in the long-term but no where close to as quickly as most people believe, and that the short-term impact will be limited to more narrow use cases. I also believe we're going to see a big rebound to people doing work in the next few years.
Many here likely disagree with me and it will be interesting to see how everything plays out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I shared your view a year ago. Hell half my posts here on HN are arguing against the annoying hype. Today I make heavy use of AI and my code quality has gone up, not down. It's better tested, better factored, with better error handling covering more edge cases AI code is only buggy if no-one is guiding or reviewing it I'm not sure how long we'll need someone in the middle to actually review the code
That works because you are a senior developer who knows how to properly use the AI tools. What 10 years from now? What happens when senior devs are retiring and we do t have replacements since we replaced junior devs with AI?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never been a fan of UBI (and I'm often downvoted for that, ha ha). I like the idea of mandating an 18 hour work week or similar though. It still keeps the incentive to work — still rewards those who want to achieve more. One wonders though what impact that will have on society — so much additional free time. More television binging? I hope not.
Why do folk "need" to work? To justify their existence? Don't we have a duty of care for fellow humans?
Our own psychology aside, people need to work because at present robots cannot make all the stuff we want. So if we (society as a whole) want all this stuff, then we need to work.
We have a duty to treat our fellow humans with dignity and humanity. I'm not sure that extends to providing for those who can work but won't, though - not when there's work that society as a whole needs done.
Don't worry -- soon after that, there will be high demand for human coders as companies scramble to hire to rewrite all the buggy and vuln-ridden AI-hallucinated software. We're on the verge of two revolutions in tech, not one.
The rate at which AI is capable of producing code is intractable for humans to deal with. Right now the bottleneck is human reviewers. If AI ever becomes effective at generating provably correct code, it's joever.
Oh…
Don't worry -- soon after that, there will be high demand for human coders as companies scramble to hire to rewrite all the buggy and vuln-ridden AI-hallucinated software. We're on the verge of two revolutions in tech, not one.
I shared your view a year ago. Hell half my posts here on HN are arguing against the annoying hype. Today I make heavy use of AI and my code quality has gone up, not down. It's better tested, better factored, with better error handling covering more edge cases AI code is only buggy if no-one is guiding or reviewing it I'm not sure how long we'll need someone in the middle to actually review the code
You chose to invest in the downward career slope. That’s why your opinion has changed. If you continued to resist it you wouldn’t be looking to remove yourself from the auditing/coding position.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That works because you are a senior developer who knows how to properly use the AI tools. What 10 years from now? What happens when senior devs are retiring and we do t have replacements since we replaced junior devs with AI?
Presumably, AI has advanced in 10 years?
Interesting that the author doesn't mention a reduction in working hours as a solution because I see that as THE solution. Federally mandate an 18 hour work week and job demand will soar. It's just as fanciful a thought as his other suggestions given how little power we have over the federal government to exercise our will.
Our entire economic system is built around ensuring we have scarcities of necessities (housing, mostly) so workers need to outcompete their peers to have access to said necessities. This results in reduced work weeks being a non starters as those who would like to avail of them are outbid by those who forego them.
But I'm not sure that 40hrs is the sweet spot. Other countries have chosen differently (with comparisons difficult to draw).
There are several competing influences here: inflation, AI productivity gains (TBD but nonzero), existing legislation around health insurance obligations, social/economic inertia, etc. And definitely others I'm not smart enough to think of!
It'd be interesting, if it was possible, to ramp down the 40hrs by an hour or two every year, keeping other components (esp healthcare) in step, to see where the inflection point is. I feel confident that we could get down to 32hrs without major negative drama. I agree that 18hrs (suggested elsewhere) would be violent.
Don't worry -- soon after that, there will be high demand for human coders as companies scramble to hire to rewrite all the buggy and vuln-ridden AI-hallucinated software. We're on the verge of two revolutions in tech, not one.
I shared your view a year ago. Hell half my posts here on HN are arguing against the annoying hype. Today I make heavy use of AI and my code quality has gone up, not down. It's better tested, better factored, with better error handling covering more edge cases AI code is only buggy if no-one is guiding or reviewing it I'm not sure how long we'll need someone in the middle to actually review the code
That said, we will need less coders overall. Just like you don't need human drafters or calculators in the same way. It will cut the bottom out of the industry, and entry level will be expected operate like a senior from 10 years ago.