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AI is different

antirez.com

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Re: AI is different

#281

Post by XenophileJKO »

motorest wrote: post #264
chrisco255 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but which can be trained to the new job opportunities more easily than humans can What makes you think that? Self driving cars have had untold billions of dollars in reaearch and decades in applied testing, iteration, active monitoring, etc and it still has a very long tail of unaddressed issues. They've been known to ignore police traffic redirections, they've run right through construction barriers, and recently…

> What makes you think that? Self driving cars have had (...) I think you're confusing your cherry-picked comparison with reality. LLMs are eliminating the need to have a vast array of positions on payrolls. From copywriters to customer support, and even creative activities such as illustration and even authoring books, today's LLMs are already more than good enough to justify replacing people with the output of any…

I think your assumption is probably a little backwards. It will be a senior SDE clearing the slate I think. Ones that embrace the technolocy and are able to accelerate their work. At that level of effeciency the cost is still way way lower than it is for a larger team.

When it gets to the point that you don't need a senior engineer doing the work, you won't need a junior either.

Re: AI is different

#282

Post by motorest »

taormina wrote: post #268
motorest wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think that? Self driving cars have had (...) I think you're confusing your cherry-picked comparison with reality. LLMs are eliminating the need to have a vast array of positions on payrolls. From copywriters to customer support, and even creative activities such as illustration and even authoring books, today's LLMs are already more than good enough to justify replacing people with the output of any…

> LLMs are eliminating the need to have a vast array of positions on payrolls. From copywriters to customer support, and even creative activities such as illustration and even authoring books, today's LLMs are already more than good enough to justify replacing people with the output of any commercial chatbot service. I'd love a source to these claims. Many companies are claiming that they are able to layoff folks bec…

> I'd love a source to these claims.

Have you been living under a rock?

You can start getting up to speed by how Amazon's CEO already laid out the company's plan.

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/amazon-generative...

> (...) AI is just a scapegoat to counteract the reckless overhiring due to (...)

That is your personal moralist scapegoat, and one that you made up to feel better about how jobs are being eliminated because someone somewhere screwed up.

In the meantime, you fool yourself and pretend that sudden astronomic productivity gains have no impact on demand.

Re: AI is different

#283

Post by listenallyall »

mcny wrote: post #228
sneak wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t provide valuable things for “free” en masse without institutionalizing either slavery or robbery. The value must come from somewhere. The costs of what you propose are enormous. No legislation can change that fact. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Who’s going to pay for it? Someone who is not paying for it today. How do you intend to get them to consent to that? Or do you think that the needs of t…

> You’re talking about 3-5 trillion dollars per year just for the USA I just want to point out that's about a fifth of our GDP and we spend about this much for healthcare in the US. We badly need a way to reduce this to at least half. > There is a reason we all pay for our own food and housing. The main reason I support UBI is I don't want need based or need aware distribution. I want everyone to get benefits equally…

> I support UBI

Honestly, what type of housing do you envision under a UBI system? Houses? Modern apartment buildings? College dormitory-like buildings? Soviet-style complexes? Prison-style accommodations? B stands for basic, how basic?

Re: AI is different

#284

Post by globular-toast »

We currently work more than we ever have. Just a couple of generations ago it was common for a couple to consist of one person who worked for someone else or the public, and one who worked at home for themselves. Now we pretty much all have to work for someone else full time then work for ourselves in the evening. And that won't make you rich, it will just make you normal.

Maybe a "loss of jobs" is what we need so we can go back working for ourselves, cooking our own food, maintaining our own houses etc.

This is why I doubt it will happen. I think "AI" will just end up making us work even more for even less.

Re: AI is different

#285

Post by simianwords »

raincole wrote: post #277
simianwords wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think the jump from books to freely globally accessible data instantly available is a smaller jump than internet to ChatGPT? This is insane!!

It's not just smaller, but neglectable (in comparison). In the internet era you had to parse the questions with your own brain. You just didn't necessarily need to solve them yourself. In ChatGPT era you don't even need to read the questions. At all. The questions could be written in a language you don't understand, and you still are able generate plausible answers to them.

To a person from the 1920's which one is more impressive? The internet or chatgpt?

Re: AI is different

#286

Post by alex-moon »

mycentstoo wrote: post #266

I am just not having this experience of AI being terribly useful. I don’t program as much in my role but I’ve found it’s a giant time sink. I recognize that many people are finding it incredibly helpful but when I get deeper into a particular issue or topic, it falls very flat.

This is my view on it too. Antirez is a Torvalds-level legend as far as I'm concerned, when he speaks I listen - but he is clearly seeing something here that I am not. I can't help but feel like there is an information asymmetry problem more generally here, which I guess is the point of this piece, but I also don't think that's substantially different to any other hype cycle - "What do they know that I don't?" Usually nothing.

Re: AI is different

#287

Post by juniperus »

motorest wrote: post #269
sneak wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t provide valuable things for “free” en masse without institutionalizing either slavery or robbery. The value must come from somewhere. The costs of what you propose are enormous. No legislation can change that fact. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Who’s going to pay for it? Someone who is not paying for it today. How do you intend to get them to consent to that? Or do you think that the needs of t…

> You can’t provide valuable things for “free” en masse without institutionalizing either slavery or robbery. The value must come from somewhere. Utter nonsense. Do you believe the European countries that provides higher education for free are manning tenure positions with slaves or robbing people at gunpoint? How come do you see public transportation services in some major urban centers being provided free of charge…

You're missing the point, language can be tricky. Technically, the state confiscating wealth derived from your labor through taxes is a form of robbery and slavery. It used to be called corvée. But the words being used have a connotation of something much more brutal and unrewarding. This isn't a political statement, I'm not a libertarian who believes all taxation is evil robbery and needs to be abolished. I'm just pointing out by the definition of slavery aka forced labor, and robbery aka confiscation of wealth, the state employs both of those tactics to fund the programs you described.

Re: AI is different

#288

Post by flask_manager »

ares623 wrote: post #74
ahurmazda wrote: post #13

When I hear folks glazing some kinda impending jobless utopia , I think of the intervening years. I shudder. As they say, "An empty stomach knows no morality."

This pisses me off so much. So many engineers are so excited to work on and with these systems, opening 20 prs per day to make their employers happy going “yes boss!” They think their $300k total compensation will give them a seat at the table for what they’re cheering on to come. I say that anyone who needed to go the grocery this week will not be spared by the economic downturn this tech promises. Unless you have y…

Here's the thing, I tend to believe that sufficiently intelligent and original people will always have something to offer others; its irrelevant if you imagine the others as the current consumer public, our corporate overlords, or the ai owners of the future.

There may be people who have nothing to offer others, once technology advances, but I dont think that anyone in current top % role would find themselves there.

Re: AI is different

#289

Post by sneak »

motorest wrote: post #269
sneak wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t provide valuable things for “free” en masse without institutionalizing either slavery or robbery. The value must come from somewhere. The costs of what you propose are enormous. No legislation can change that fact. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Who’s going to pay for it? Someone who is not paying for it today. How do you intend to get them to consent to that? Or do you think that the needs of t…

> You can’t provide valuable things for “free” en masse without institutionalizing either slavery or robbery. The value must come from somewhere. Utter nonsense. Do you believe the European countries that provides higher education for free are manning tenure positions with slaves or robbing people at gunpoint? How come do you see public transportation services in some major urban centers being provided free of charge…

> Are countries with access to free health care using slavery to keep hospitals and clinics running?

No, robbery. They’re paid for with tax revenues, which are collected without consent. Taking of someone’s money without consent has a name.

Have you ever stopped to consider why class mobility is much much less common in Europe than in the USA?

Re: AI is different

#290

Post by motorest »

XenophileJKO wrote: post #281
motorest wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think that? Self driving cars have had (...) I think you're confusing your cherry-picked comparison with reality. LLMs are eliminating the need to have a vast array of positions on payrolls. From copywriters to customer support, and even creative activities such as illustration and even authoring books, today's LLMs are already more than good enough to justify replacing people with the output of any…

I think your assumption is probably a little backwards. It will be a senior SDE clearing the slate I think. Ones that embrace the technolocy and are able to accelerate their work. At that level of effeciency the cost is still way way lower than it is for a larger team. When it gets to the point that you don't need a senior engineer doing the work, you won't need a junior either.

> I think your assumption is probably a little backwards. It will be a senior SDE clearing the slate I think.

I don't think you understood the point I made.

My point was not about Jr vs Sr, let alone how a Jr is somehow more capable than a Sr.

My point was that these productivity gains aren't a factor of experience of seniority, but they do devalue the importance of seniority to perform specific tasks. Just crack open a LLM, feed in a few prompts, and done. Hell, junior developers no longer need to reach out to seniors to as questions about any topic. Think about that for a second.

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