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When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
171–180 of 298 posts
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#172If you're a regular engineer like me, there's no real upside to using AI in a company setting. They're boiling us. Of course, the HN elite (investors, execs, celebrities, and top-tier engineers) will say otherwise because "how can you be against innovation man?" AI/LLMs aren't innovation the way TCP/IP, linux, or postgres were. To be clear: claude/codex/gemini/grok/whatever exist for profit, to squeeze the last drop…
Seems like the upside is that it makes the job way easier? What am I missing?
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#173If you're a regular engineer like me, there's no real upside to using AI in a company setting. They're boiling us. Of course, the HN elite (investors, execs, celebrities, and top-tier engineers) will say otherwise because "how can you be against innovation man?" AI/LLMs aren't innovation the way TCP/IP, linux, or postgres were. To be clear: claude/codex/gemini/grok/whatever exist for profit, to squeeze the last drop…
There’s an engineering story of being abused by capitalists, but from an Executive perspective the whole thing strikes me as insane except for ‘next quarters bonus’.
Anyone remember what SCO did to the industry as it went under?
The part I still don’t get is where Enterprises are dumping internal ‘secrets’ (code, processes, customer needs, internal politics, leadership dreams), into the hands of startups and untrustworthy conglomerates. MS used to be famous for NDA and deal abuse.
I don’t believe for a second the LLM giants would be shy about training on corporate materials and lying about it. And if they start going under? This gold rush might have a long, ugly, tail.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We make software just like how Ford makes cars". People who say this kind of thing probably have no idea how Ford makes cars either. The assembly line is the last step. All the research, design, engineering, and testing happens before any sheet metal is stamped out. So the comparison might be more true than not, but unknowingly.
It's not true at all. In software, the factory line is nothing but cp or httpd and neither costs nor produces any value. In cars, the factory line both costs and produces all the value.
Wait, I thought it was the auto company financial services division that produces all the value.
The design, factory, supply chain, etc. is just the marketing arm for the loans...
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) The game is not ending, it's changing. AI can sling a lot of code but we still need engineers that actually understand what the hell is going on. That's always been the bottleneck. It could eliminate junior positions, but seniors are fine for now. 2) It's been a hard lesson for me to learn because I'm naturally a contrarian, but you are hired to do what management wants you to do. If you resist, your best bet is t…
If you eliminate juniors over the next few years, there will be no seniors for the future when the current seniors retire.
Yep, I'm a fan of the current crop of AI tools because they are incredibly useful to me, but I have deep concerns about the pipeline problem.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#176If you're a regular engineer like me, there's no real upside to using AI in a company setting. They're boiling us. Of course, the HN elite (investors, execs, celebrities, and top-tier engineers) will say otherwise because "how can you be against innovation man?" AI/LLMs aren't innovation the way TCP/IP, linux, or postgres were. To be clear: claude/codex/gemini/grok/whatever exist for profit, to squeeze the last drop…
Seems like the upside is that it makes the job way easier? What am I missing?
It seems like a lot of developers have philosophical disagreements with the direction of AI combined with fear of change and fear that AI makes them less competitive in the job market. I see people regularly boycotting or rejecting AI for a variation of these reasons, and it feels a lot like self-sabotage.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#177In my large enterprise world, AI adoption hasn't made it outside of the development teams - only developers have access to Github Copilot. Code takes 6-12 months to make it from commit to production. Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. AI makes these post-development bottlenecks w…
Unshipped code can't break. How is it a liability and not an asset? The money maker is making money and the changes that potentially would interfere with that are held up at the gate. Seems like a good thing from a business perspective.
You spent money making it, and now it's not making any money. It's pure liability (in the accounting sense, not the legal liability sense).
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) The game is not ending, it's changing. AI can sling a lot of code but we still need engineers that actually understand what the hell is going on. That's always been the bottleneck. It could eliminate junior positions, but seniors are fine for now. 2) It's been a hard lesson for me to learn because I'm naturally a contrarian, but you are hired to do what management wants you to do. If you resist, your best bet is t…
If you eliminate juniors over the next few years, there will be no seniors for the future when the current seniors retire.
Then pay will go up again for those mid-level developers who still remain, and companies will again overhire and overtrain like we saw during COVID years. “We won’t have any seniors in ten years!!1!” is a handwringy problem that self solves by the free market.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#179The post hits the nail on the head with the messy middle. There is simply no motivation to develop this sort of intelligence loop as a dev who has their own responsibilities which their job depend on. Management can ask as nicely as they want, but I’m not going to selflessly share my productivity gains with the broader company for free. I might share a tool if it’s useful. All the learning of how to wrangle AI or set…
It kinda racks my brain how a lot of people don't think this way. For example, way before the current state of AI, I wrote my own CLI to make aspects of my job easier and easier to write scripts to automate; some colleagues have noticed my tool and said I should share it, and my diplomatically worded answer is no. I don't share it with anyone because of the negative return in both supporting it and everyone else bein…
It sucks to work with people like you, honestly. Prima-Donna types that overindex on their own personal paranoias instead of trying to succeed, grow, and excel along with the people around them. Quite literally not a team player.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of Bullshit Jobs[1] are going to be replaced by AI - it's not clear whether these "brokers" who can be trained with a powerpoint presentation are actually doing anything useful for society or even for the economy. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
Yeah but I mean... My dog gets excited and barks to let me know whenever someone is at the door. It might crush his spirit if he knew he is just a useless pet and his contribution is meaningless.
If nothing else, it signals to people approaching your door that there is a dog they may not want to have to deal with.