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AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

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Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#31

Post by throwaway2203 »

cube2222 wrote: post #24

I have a friend who needed to generate 400 random qr codes. Did the first half in 4 hours, going one by one through an online website. Learning about it mid through that process I told her to try asking chatgpt to write a python script for it (she knows a bit of python, knows how to run a script etc.). Needed a pip install of the qr code lib, but other than that worked right away. ChatGPT turned the next 4 hours of m…

> People who just vaguely know how to program

This is a very absurdly small minority of people.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#32

Post by bern4444 »

The benefit of AI is it will make workers more efficient and free up workers and thus businesses to focus on additional projects and problems, create new tools, grow, etc.

One real issue I hope we resolve is to then see workers benefit from their increased efficiency in regards to their compensation.

Pay has not kept pace with increased workers efficiency historically. The efficiency gains technology produces tend to go to the top (C Suite and shareholders). While I, like many, am a shareholder of many companies (so I do benefit as equity markets go up) - the vast majority of Americans own very little if any equity in any equities and this is what leads to absurd wealth disparity.

It'd be nice if this time were different and we could create a system that avoids all the extra cash this generates from being funneled up like regulatory capture - I suspect it won't be.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#33

Post by yamazakiwi »

jszymborski wrote: post #11
stuckinhell wrote: post #4

I agree. However it will increase the bimodal distribution between normal developers and the extremely skilled developers. Salaries on the whole will drop, and we likely see an increase in outsourcing. AI can reduce the barriers between languages and cultural customs as well.

> AI can reduce the barriers between languages and cultural customs as well. Languages, maybe, but cultural customs? I highly doubt that. Perhaps the perfunctory sort (e.g.: "vous"-ing and "usted"-ing), but there are real differences between cultures in both the work place and and personally that AI can't help you with. Nothing but compassion and a willingness to learn will help you with that one.

It won't remove ALL barriers obviously, but AI can explain quirks, significance, reference, and cultural trends in speech. An AI can dive deep to further comprehension, which will facilitate more cultural understanding through linguistic relativity.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#34

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

> I propose a simple lens to settle this debate: look around you and count how many products or services you use regularly that you wish are better digitized or “software-ized.”

What about the ones that are already digitized and despite their unavoidable convenience for being so, are less enjoyable than they used to be and more loaded with surveillance and advertising?

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#35

Post by tombert »

ultrablack wrote: post #15

Demand for developers is endless. If AI can help more people be developers, and or help developers be more productive, it just means the supply of developers goes up. I would guess that this will not result in a downward pressure on wages, the demand will simply skyrocket.

I agree. I think people are looking at this through an "Amdahl's Law" lens [1] when I think it's more realistically a "Gustafson's Law" problem. It's not like we will ever get to a point where we say "oh, all the potential things that can be done have been done", we simply will find out how to do more stuff.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustafson%27s_law

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#36

Post by jeremyjh »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #16

I am believing that, too. Just imagine this: Take a Laptop with WinXP+Office 98 from the 2000 era and travel back in time to the 60s or 70s using a time machine. Show the power of Excel to any of those developers punching holes into a punch card, feeding room-sized "computers". Tell them that this "Excel" tool is used by business and sales people without any programming skills. Those developers would clearly tell the…

It does seem that every advance in productivity has led to more software jobs, but I see no reason this must continue forever. I can tell that I have no fear for my job from Copilot and ChatGPT, both of which I use constantly. But the next generation of tools, marrying low-code, integration platforms and AI generation of those applications could really be a game changer.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#37

Post by cube2222 »

throwaway2203 wrote: post #31
cube2222 wrote: post #24

I have a friend who needed to generate 400 random qr codes. Did the first half in 4 hours, going one by one through an online website. Learning about it mid through that process I told her to try asking chatgpt to write a python script for it (she knows a bit of python, knows how to run a script etc.). Needed a pip install of the qr code lib, but other than that worked right away. ChatGPT turned the next 4 hours of m…

> People who just vaguely know how to program This is a very absurdly small minority of people.

It's becoming increasingly more common for people in various stem areas, social sciences, economics, etc.

Basics of Python courses are very common everywhere, now.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#38

Post by re-thc »

cube2222 wrote: post #24

I have a friend who needed to generate 400 random qr codes. Did the first half in 4 hours, going one by one through an online website. Learning about it mid through that process I told her to try asking chatgpt to write a python script for it (she knows a bit of python, knows how to run a script etc.). Needed a pip install of the qr code lib, but other than that worked right away. ChatGPT turned the next 4 hours of m…

> ChatGPT turned the next 4 hours of menial work into 10 minutes. This is the true incoming disruption.

Problem is how do you know if it's correct? If you have to verify it all it may take even longer. And when it's wrong it's back to square 1.

> People who just vaguely know how to program, getting a powerful tool that can assist them 95% of the way for simple automations like this.

Is assuming it's correct.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#39

Post by zabzonk »

stuckinhell wrote: post #4

I agree. However it will increase the bimodal distribution between normal developers and the extremely skilled developers. Salaries on the whole will drop, and we likely see an increase in outsourcing. AI can reduce the barriers between languages and cultural customs as well.

yeah, people seem to have forgotten all those derided developers that spent their time copy/pasting code from stack overflow into their project. which is basically what gpt is doing.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#40

Post by bitL »

That assumes human brains will be able to cope with intelligence tuned beyond their reach. We are already at the stage where many PhDs aren't capable of producing outputs coming from LLMs in some areas. The only approach regular humans used when meeting "superintelligence" were belief systems.
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