Fantastic article. However author never considered that I'm looking forward to my job being automated. That's like a whole point of programming.
Cannibalism
31–40 of 87 posts
Re: Cannibalism
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deepseek is realistic about this and is offering great prices. I think that once companies are more realistic about token demand they can start making a profit
What is China subsidises its inference providers to provide like utility level "intelligence" at or below cost globally until all the knowledge jobs in the west go the way of the manufacturing ones..
Providing services below cost is how SV and American tech operated last 25 years. It was the same pattern again and again - sell bellow cost, competition cant compete, create quasi monopoly, enshittify and start earning.
OpenAI and Anthropic still sells tokens under cost.
Re: Cannibalism
#33I was with the article - especially the bit about the 10% an LLM loses and how that loss can be de-amplified across eventual meaning, but then... "My first instinct is to laugh and shake my head. One need not look very far to find indignant software developers absolutely certain that their jobs cannot possibly be automated away by the very tools their industry contemporaries are creating to replace them. I suspect yo…
classic example of the goomba fallacy - "all software engineers are one single person-caricature I have in my head and are therefore a stupid walking contradiction whenever two of them express different opinions".
Do these hypothetical laid off software engineers with no empathy for buggy drivers exist outside the imagination of people who hate software engineers? I know in my education we had a bunch of mandatory courses about automation and the effects on workers, how to consult with workers on how to lift them up rather than be antagonistic, and consider different stakeholders (where "the business" or "product" was but one of many) etc.
Re: Cannibalism
#34> Third, once destroyed those industries will not meaningfully return. This is not a process that will result in a natural ebb and flow. Once the software development profession is disrupted, it will stay that way as talent pipelines dry up and expertise ages out
I can echo that. If/when I am replaced with an LLM, I plan on switching to a hands-on profession - welder, electrician, machinist. I am also not planning on ever going back to software... errr... prompt "engineering". Maybe for twice my pre-LLM salary at a place with a no-LLM policy? More at a prompt-engineering place.
Re: Cannibalism
#35I was with the article - especially the bit about the 10% an LLM loses and how that loss can be de-amplified across eventual meaning, but then... "My first instinct is to laugh and shake my head. One need not look very far to find indignant software developers absolutely certain that their jobs cannot possibly be automated away by the very tools their industry contemporaries are creating to replace them. I suspect yo…
Is this sarcastic or do you just not see the irony?
It's not easy being a developer right now. We went from being dorky and unpopular in school to being superstars (at work) and now the writing's on the wall. I can sympathize, but I'll concede that our recently developed attention for the state of nature and the fair distribution of capital is .. interesting.
Re: Cannibalism
#36Fantastic article. However author never considered that I'm looking forward to my job being automated. That's like a whole point of programming.
To what end? Can't you just quit and get the same result?
Re: Cannibalism
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deepseek is realistic about this and is offering great prices. I think that once companies are more realistic about token demand they can start making a profit
What is China subsidises its inference providers to provide like utility level "intelligence" at or below cost globally until all the knowledge jobs in the west go the way of the manufacturing ones..
Even if that were true, the smaller quants that can be run on a MacBook aren't going anywhere
Re: Cannibalism
#38"Fourth, we will not find ourselves working less. Rather, there will be a bimodal outcome: those unable to find a place in the new AI-powered industry will fall out of it entirely, while those that remain are worked harder and harder as they drive automated development systems. Five PRs a week? Hah! Try fifty. Or five hundred." My experience with AI/LLMs summed up. The baseline expectation got higher. I didn't get an…
Why would it? Who, with a half brain, thought that you’d ever work less ?
Many economists, already from the 19th century, claimed that technological progress would reduce the workweek. Some imagined we'd work 3 days per week, others only 1. Some imagined we'd work a few hours everyday.
I remember many people even on this very site claiming AI would help humanity. I think the most ridiculous the most ridiculous claim was helping fight climate change, but helping produce more leisure time by automating work was definitely what some people thought, or at least what they wanted us to think while pushing their crap.
Re: Cannibalism
#39Are people seriously getting use out of LLMs? Everything they produce is extermely sloppy in my experience, like actually mostly useless. I really dont understand the hype. Its very confusing.
Without you telling what your job entails and how the pristine artifacts of your crystalline mind fit into the larger picture it's very hard to have a conversation about this.
But yes, many developers I know haven't coded manually in months and that includes me. That doesn't mean I drink coffee and take walks while the agent codes however. I'm now in the driving seat instead of wrangling syntax and waiting for my hands to type something.
I manage the rules, the intent, the structure. If I don't like what it does, I update the coding standard, the docs, the specs, you name it. If I want a different architecture I can actually get it done in 10min instead of a week - if at all. It's more effort than coding for me, because coding is slow and methodical and incentivizes pedantry, but for me it's a massive improvement. I have been bored out of my mind for a decade now, but I'm relatively good at what I do so I just stuck with it. I'm one of those "middle management types stuck in developer role"-type of guys so I guess my personality and proclivities have something to do with it. I also know quite a few grumpy old-school types that don't get anything done with LLMs. They can't communicate, they don't understand psychology, they don't understand architecture and have a debilitating case of missing the forest for the trees. The spread, in my experience, is massive.
Re: Cannibalism
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this sarcastic or do you just not see the irony?
It's not easy being a developer right now. We went from being dorky and unpopular in school to being superstars (at work) and now the writing's on the wall. I can sympathize, but I'll concede that our recently developed attention for the state of nature and the fair distribution of capital is .. interesting.
I don't disagree, but the absolute hubris to think that our job is particularly difficult is also ridiculous. One by one our responsibilities will be able to be shifted into highly leveragable software, whether it's years or decades away.