It's normal flow of things in the industry, isn't it? It used to be an important skill for a programmer to optimize constantly. Tasks like "We need to cut halfkilobyte at least!" were challenging, and satisfying puzzles. And today you open a news webpage, it takes 1.5Gib and who cares? Typing speed used to be an important skill too, and nowadays one can be a decent software developer using two fingers. Memorizing names, and parameters used to be extremely important until autocomplete, and autosuggest appeared. I can expand this list to a hundred points probably.
The Bitter Prediction
171–180 of 189 posts
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#172Some people like to whittle wood. It’s no longer a career choice with strong prospects.
As for: ” In some countries, more than 90% of the population lives on less than $5 per day.”
Well, with the orders of magnitude difference already in place, this is not going to meaningfully impact that at all.
Im not dismissing this: I’m saying that it isn’t much of a building block in thinking about all of the things AI is going to change and should be addressed as a result because it’s simply in the pile of problems labeled “was here before, will be here after”.
And really, it ought to be thought of in the context of “can we leverage AI to help address this problem in ways we cannot do so now?”
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the lifelong dream of many businesspeople is to create the perfect "cog in the machine" or ideally run a business without workers at all. (Tony Stark, Elon Musk's role model, is a good example of that. As far as the movies are concerned, he builds all his most important inventions himself, or with the help of AI, no workers involved) Independent of what AI can do today, I suspect this was a reason why so many…
You say it like it's a bad thing.
I do believe it's a bad thing, for a number of general reasons. But as far as the US specifically is concerned, I think a society can pick one out of the following two:
(1) Define people's worth through labour.
(2) See labour as a cost center that should be eliminated wherever possible.
US politicians and technologists are trying to have it both ways: Oppose a social safety net out of principle as to "not encourage leechers", forcing people to work, but at the same time seek to reduce the opportunities for work as much as possible. AI is the latest and potentially most far-reaching implementation of that.
This is asking for trouble.
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say it like it's a bad thing.
I do believe it's a bad thing, for a number of general reasons. But as far as the US specifically is concerned, I think a society can pick one out of the following two: (1) Define people's worth through labour. (2) See labour as a cost center that should be eliminated wherever possible. US politicians and technologists are trying to have it both ways: Oppose a social safety net out of principle as to "not encourage l…
The US spends more per capita on their social safety net than eg France does.
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say it like it's a bad thing.
Of course, humans are social beings if technology 'allows' you to be antisocial, are you still being human?
Providing value for your fellow humans (= customers) while economising on scarce resources like human labour is anti-social?
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Productivity at work is well correlated with enjoyment of work, so the industry better look for people who enjoy programming. The realization that productive workers aren't just replaceable cogs in the machine is also a bitter lesson for businessmen.
>so the industry better look for people who enjoy programming Why? Both AI and outsourcing provide a much cheaper way to get programming done. Why would you pay someone 100k because he likes doing what an AI or an Indian dev Team can do for much cheaper?
The Indian dev enjoys programming, too
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#177The thing is: the industry does not need people who are good at (or enjoy) programming, it needs people who are good at ( and enjoy) generating value for customers through code. So the OP was in a bad place without Claude anyways (in industry at least). This realization is the true bitter one for many engineers.
Writing software will never again be a skill worth 100k a year. I am sure Software developers are here to stay, but nobody who just writes software is worth anywhere close to 100k a year. Either AI or outsourcing is making sure of that.
Right now there are thousands of solo devs making >100k a year without a boss to annoy them. That's only going to grow with AI.
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#178The author is doing the math the wrong way. For an extra $5/day, a 3rd world country can now pay an engineer $20/day to do the job of a junior engineer in a 1st world one. The bitter lesson is going to be for junior engineers who see less job offers and don’t see consulting power houses eat their lunch.
Yes, my thoughts at the end of the article. If the AI coding is really good (or will be really, really good) you could give 6 figures salary + $5/d in OpenAI credits to a Bay Area developer, OR you give $5/d salary + $5/d in OpenAI credits to someone else from another country. That's what happened to manufacturing after all.
150 dollars/month as salary won't get you no one from no country and if it happens to, the person will have so many things to figure out (war, hunger, political instability) that they would obviously not be productive.
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
There will still be people who care to go deeper and learn what an API is and how to design a good one. They will be able to build the services and clients faster and go deeper using AI code assistants. And then, yes, you’ll have the legions of vibe coders living in Plato’s cave and churning out tinker toys.
That’s it then isn’t it? We are at the level where we’re making tinker toys. What is the tinker toy industry like? Instead of expensive start up Google office. Do I at least get a workshop in the back of the garden? How much does it pay?
I mean yeah a lot of tech is doing is tinker toy BS. A lot of people in it to make money, not make the world better in any material way. To some extent that’s fine, but some people become deluded.
There are still real things being done, but they often don’t pay as nicely or live in the spotlight.
Re: The Bitter Prediction
#180I think AI is posing a challenge to people like the person in TFA because programming is their hobby and one that they’re good at. They aren’t used to knowing someone or something can do it better and knowing that now makes them wonder what the point is. I argue that amateur artists and musicians have dealt with this feeling of “someone can always do it better” for a very long time. You can have fun while knowing som…
I'm both relatively experienced as a musician and software engineer so I kinda see both sides. If musicians want to get better, they have to go to the practice room and work. There's a satisfaction to doing this work and coming out the other side with that hard-won growth. Prior to AI, this was also true with software engineering. Now, at least for the time being, programmers can increase productivity and output, whi…
I think in the workplace this is true, and a bummer, because the workplace demands the benefits that AI augmented programming offers. As a hobby, though, like music, the need for productivity isn’t as high and you can go to the proverbial practice room and program.
Overall I think you have a good point and the bummer for me is that the practice room isn’t as available for the day job.