learn2plumb noobs
I'm worried it might get bad
211–220 of 237 posts
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#212Earlier 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
I view AI like a gas pedal. For an experienced driver it can really help. For someone new, straight into a wall. For some code you go straight for hours and barely touch the steering wheel. For some code it's all wheel and too much gas is a mistake. 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…
Or as the article put it:
>> Most workers, and most work days, are just drudgery. Answering emails. Writing up quarterly plans. Reviewing metrics. Building applications that do something with data.
Yes. Those jobs are going to disappear. If your role's primary value is shuffling paper around an org, or putting minor edits on something before forwarding, your job is going to disappear to AI in the next 1-3 years.
Or AI-initiated human process optimization in the next 2-5 years, which I think is an underappreciated second wave.
To define that: if we 10x or 100x the productivity of certain roles, won't companies look at the remaining unaccelerated human speedbumps and ask "Is it really that important we have a person do that? Because it's now costing us substantial latency and throughput of the process as a whole."
And in many cases they'll likely conclude that no, it's not critical that a human be involved at that point. So poof those jobs as well.
As a result, we'll have many fewer humans being much more productive.
Tbd on whether that produces enough surplus (and equal allocation of it) to balance out the job losses.
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#213Earlier 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?
> What happens when senior devs are retiring and we do t have replacements since we replaced junior devs with AI?
... AI eats senior devs. Vibe coding front-end devs inherit the earth. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Clzx434IV6o
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the absence of collusion, if a business can produce a product or service less expensively, giving them the ability to outcompete competitors, they will do so.
Even if UBI is funded by taxation, rather than deficit spending, isn't it possible that demand will increase for some products (e.g. basic necessities that UBI recipients will suddenly be able to spend more on), causing inflationary pressure on the prices of those products?
By that argument, UBI causes both inflation (for essential goods and services) and deflation (for luxury items and assets).
That's the economy reorienting itself around the new demand landscape. Those price spikes are the signal to producers to ramp up supply, which should push the price back down over time.
Inflation is highly problematic when it spirals. Events like collapse of trust in a currency or government can result in runaway inflation, which is a disaster by all accounts. A one-time price spike caused by a one-time abrupt shift in demand is a very different scenario. Assuming the UBI is higher than the prices increases on necessities, we've successfully redistributed wealth and made those people better able to afford necessities, despite the fact that they cost x% more.
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#215Don'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
> I'm not sure how long we'll need someone in the middle to actually review the code
Always will, it's a question of how many people we need, not if. Well, until AGI (which I'm very bearish on in the near or even intermediate term) or some other monumental shift
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I view AI like a gas pedal. For an experienced driver it can really help. For someone new, straight into a wall. For some code you go straight for hours and barely touch the steering wheel. For some code it's all wheel and too much gas is a mistake. 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…
Or as the article put it: >> Most workers, and most work days, are just drudgery. Answering emails. Writing up quarterly plans. Reviewing metrics. Building applications that do something with data. Yes. Those jobs are going to disappear. If your role's primary value is shuffling paper around an org, or putting minor edits on something before forwarding, your job is going to disappear to AI in the next 1-3 years. Or A…
If there are no people, there won't be a need for managers to exist either. Who/What are the managers going to manage? The office air?
Eventually whoever that is running the business has to be smart enough to figure out everything, and the margin for error will be small in a economic environment where every one is already poor and can't spend to buy your things.
I remember the days of socialist India. If everyone is poor its impossible to do the good things like research, development, innovation. The reason is simple, with no one having money to buy your things, you will never make profits to invest in them.
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
But will humans understand the proofs? Oh…
The proof either passes the SAT solver in a reasonable amount of time, or it doesn't.
Somebody will have to write proof verifier, and that in many ways will be harder than writing some CRUD app that they want proof verifier to validate.
We might even end up increasing the demand and pay for devs if this happens to pass.
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
The proof either passes the SAT solver in a reasonable amount of time, or it doesn't.
Somebody will have to write proof verifier, and that in many ways will be harder than writing some CRUD app that they want proof verifier to validate. We might even end up increasing the demand and pay for devs if this happens to pass.
We have many of those that are perfectly fine. Writing proofs is still quite hard, especially proofs that actually say something about your program.
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am senior developer and have easily and successfully avoided using Llm development these last few years. Nothing has changed for me and my team mates who do use it are slower than me and often don’t know what the Pr actually does. 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 po…
How is investing in something that improves my productivity and output quality a downward career slope? Continuing to use a hand saw when there are power tools available seems like the downward slope.. If AI gets to a point where I'm fully able to be removed from auditing/coding positions.. well there won't be any coding positions left for anyone > often don’t know what the Pr actually does this is on them for being…
Analogizing AI to power tools is like analogizing building an IKEA bookshelf to outsourcing the job to a TaskRabbit.
Power tools automate manual hand movements, but you still need to follow the manual and know what fits where. Or you can spend money on a contractor from TaskRabbit to do it for you, perhaps badly.
LLMs make it faster to generate code, sure. Automating boilerplate code isn't too unlike using a drill to fit a screw.
But witting software writ large still requires thinking, something that the companies providing these services are heavily incentivized to remove.
Re: I'm worried it might get bad
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somebody will have to write proof verifier, and that in many ways will be harder than writing some CRUD app that they want proof verifier to validate. We might even end up increasing the demand and pay for devs if this happens to pass.
We have many of those that are perfectly fine. Writing proofs is still quite hard, especially proofs that actually say something about your program.
Proving something is correct is a far harder exercise, than writing a broken but acceptable version of that thing.