Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

seangoedecke.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 132 posts

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#111

Post by QuiEgo »

QuiEgo wrote: post #110

I'm curious what our industry looks like in 10 years as well. I like the architecture analogy. An architect is not really focused on doing the actual building of a design, but understanding what's possible, what tools and techniques and materials are available, and figuring out how to put the pieces together to make a thing. Right now, you're the architect who designs a house, but you're also the cement mixer, framer…

I also think in this analog, developers who are already architects are in the best place to ride out the wave of change, but long term the industry will have to figure out a way to fill the pipeline so some journeyman system will emerge.

If I was going to college tomorrow, I wouldn't touch a CS program with a 10 foot poll until all of this settles out though.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#112

Post by iwsk »

QuiEgo wrote: post #111
QuiEgo wrote: post #110

I'm curious what our industry looks like in 10 years as well. I like the architecture analogy. An architect is not really focused on doing the actual building of a design, but understanding what's possible, what tools and techniques and materials are available, and figuring out how to put the pieces together to make a thing. Right now, you're the architect who designs a house, but you're also the cement mixer, framer…

I also think in this analog, developers who are already architects are in the best place to ride out the wave of change, but long term the industry will have to figure out a way to fill the pipeline so some journeyman system will emerge. If I was going to college tomorrow, I wouldn't touch a CS program with a 10 foot poll until all of this settles out though.

What would you choose if you went to college tomorrow?

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#113

Post by QuiEgo »

iwsk wrote: post #112
QuiEgo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think in this analog, developers who are already architects are in the best place to ride out the wave of change, but long term the industry will have to figure out a way to fill the pipeline so some journeyman system will emerge. If I was going to college tomorrow, I wouldn't touch a CS program with a 10 foot poll until all of this settles out though.

What would you choose if you went to college tomorrow?

Medical industry seems like the safest for keeping high-paying white collar jobs. Engineering and legal are likely to get disrupted. Knowing my interests now, I’d probably go into flight school and try to become a commercial pilot.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#114

Post by tavavex »

wincy wrote: post #62
jjmarr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically, I would die. A condo costs $2500/month so I will either be homeless and freeze to death or be euthanized. Maybe I'm a contrarian but I don't think there's hope for anyone that doesn't control resources.

Don’t worry, pitchforks and torches are still cheap.

Great! We'll be able to scoop up lots of hay and even toast it on the fire a bit. It's a good starvation-proof fallback.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#115

Post by tavavex »

jjmarr wrote: post #68
SirMaster wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would die rather than move somewhere cheaper? What an odd take. I live in the midwest and pay $700/mo for a perfectly fine apartment in a clean and safe suburb.

I live in Canada so housing is uniformly expensive unless you live super rural. Best choice would be moving up north and slaving in a mineral mine along with everyone else that lost their jobs. Like the 1920s. I don't see myself being qualified for such a role since I am too short and don't have the physical leverage.

Housing is expensive in Canada, but it's absolutely not uniform. $2500/mo starting is crazy, which city are you sourcing these claims for? I live in a major city (but not Vancouver or Toronto, obviously) and if you're just trying to survive, you can live with roommates for $700-900, possibly less depending on your luck. Apartments, studios and other types of housing for one are about $1500 and up. Then you can go to Quebec and enjoy slighter cheaper housing still, even in the big cities. There's some middle ground between downtown Toronto and some mining town in northern Manitoba.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#116

Post by tavavex »

parpfish wrote: post #95
satvikpendem wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions won't do anything for AI based job displacement though, because they don't need you, whether you're in a union or not. I see this going the same way as SAG for example, if AI video or film creation ever gets good enough where a single "director" can make an entire movie themselves with no actors. Unions and indeed any bargaining organization only have leverage when their people are needed, but what happens whe…

Well, it’s all probably a moot point now because devs have lost leverage. But the union contracts can help bring some order to the layoff process - which employees get laid off and severance for the others.

It would've definitely helped to soften the blow. We can only blame the last generation of devs who did nothing. But if LLMs end up being as useful as claimed, nothing could halt that transition.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#118

Post by skybrian »

Tade0 wrote: post #89
aryehof wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it’s not just a “text predictor” is it? You can pretend that today we still only have ChatGPT 2 and that there is only pre-training on a large corpus of information, but that simply isn’t true?

> Well it’s not just a “text predictor” is it? It is, by definition, design and architecture a system that produces believable text. Here's a task to give it which pulls the veil right off: Ask it to add tests to a piece of code where code coverage is 100%, but it doesn't actually test functionality 100%. You'll start seeing nonsense sooner or later.

You'll need to give it another metric to improve on.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#119

Post by Tade0 »

drooby wrote: post #94
Tade0 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well it’s not just a “text predictor” is it? It is, by definition, design and architecture a system that produces believable text. Here's a task to give it which pulls the veil right off: Ask it to add tests to a piece of code where code coverage is 100%, but it doesn't actually test functionality 100%. You'll start seeing nonsense sooner or later.

A leading theory in neuroscience is that human brains are fundamentally prediction machines too, constantly predicting sensory input, other people’s behavior, the next word in a sentence. “it’s just prediction” isn’t the gotcha you think it is. Prediction and attention turn out to be a surprisingly powerful foundation for intelligence. The “just a text predictor” framing was fair a couple years ago but hasn’t kept up…

> You're definitely using the latest and greatest models?

Claude 4.6 opus high, specifically.

As for human brains: every self respecting neural networks 101 course is prefaced with "don't draw analogues to the human brain". And for good reason. Natural neural networks are fundamentally way more complex at every scale.

Also the brain indeed predicts, but also verifies and learns from the predictions. LLMs don't do that - not in real time at least.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#120

Post by ratrace »

vishnugupta wrote: post #32

Out of curiosity I checked out the author’s resume and this is their current position. Oh the irony!! I built significant pieces of the Copilot onboarding, purchasing, billing and settings flow. For eight months I headed up the Copilot anti-abuse effort. I then led the launch of GitHub Models, and am now working on other Copilot projects.

[dead]
Post reply on HN