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Jobs and Software Is Fucked

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Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#301

Post by sbfeibish »

Ralo wrote: post #236
ValentineC wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard non-stop my whole life that if I join a trade it's going to be grunt labor and I'll be paralyzed in 5 years. Maybe some are, but this isn't hard at all. I lay on a creeper and turn wrenches. Anything over 50lbs we have lifts for. The first sentence is what I'd think too. Have you considered if the fully ticketed salary includes risk of serious injury if something bad happens (like, knock on wood, lifts f…

Absolutely. It's not perfect. I risk crushing my hands everyday. Or falling. Or causing 10s of thousands of dollars in damage because I didnt tighten a bolt. Arthritis is likely. But it's still incredibly rare, and mainly in your control. All my coworkers are major injury free.

You might want to do a search on Boron and arthritis. (Knowing that it might be mildly beneficial or not help at all)

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#302

Post by supern0va »

archagon wrote: post #239
atleastoptimal wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, sadly the most principled will have to contend with the world passing them by when it turns out those principles are dead weight to capital momentum. You could have made the same point during the dawn of the industrial revolution: that purchasing any product of a machine would be betraying your friends who have spent years honing their craft, but either way, people will still opt for the machine because it's 10x…

> AI is good enough now that you can't claim that you aren't using it because you're upholding some higher standard of quality. It is simply a matter of it offending your sensibilities. AI is also great at the mechanics of writing. Should people stop writing? Obviously not. Is there value to coding other than compiling without errors and producing a plausible program as output? Obviously yes. LLMs can’t think and the…

>AI is also great at the mechanics of writing. Should people stop writing? Obviously not.

The job of writing is to be read. The job of code is not to be read: it merely helps the humans who write the code. If the code is no longer read by humans, then it no longer needs to be well composed.

We want human writers because humans have a better grasp on the ideas and stories that can best move us, and are just better at crafting writing that engages with us. Machines will likely struggle with that for some time, though they can certainly augment and help human writers improve their prose.

I get the sadness. I was the one decades ago comparing beautiful code to poetry, and I think that's still true. But also, this type of beauty is craftsmanship that only the craftsman can actually see and appreciate. The reality is that the code just needs to work, and AI can (largely) make it work.

Also: the above is assuming that the models continue to improve to human performance, which is of course an open question. I'm not taking a stance here as to whether that will come to pass, merely arguing that it is fundamentally different from writing.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#303

Post by itbeho »

Ralo wrote: post #85

After 5+ years of actively trying to get into the field (pre AI), I left. I threw my degree in the toilet, I closed my linkedin, and I went to go work in the trades as a diesel mechanic. Greatest choice I've ever made. The pay is great, the work is steady, the coworkers are relaxed and not trying to one up each other. I'm now being paid to go to school, and get raises every year until I'm fully ticketed (way more tha…

I'm in a similar process. I've enjoyed working in tech but it feels for me that it has run its course. We recently started making EDC bags and minimalist laptop backpacks. https://ancientedc.com And while it probably won't generate tech money, it's really nice sitting down at the sewing machine and cranking out a physical product that people really enjoy using.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#304

Post by sbfeibish »

Ralo wrote: post #236
ValentineC wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard non-stop my whole life that if I join a trade it's going to be grunt labor and I'll be paralyzed in 5 years. Maybe some are, but this isn't hard at all. I lay on a creeper and turn wrenches. Anything over 50lbs we have lifts for. The first sentence is what I'd think too. Have you considered if the fully ticketed salary includes risk of serious injury if something bad happens (like, knock on wood, lifts f…

Absolutely. It's not perfect. I risk crushing my hands everyday. Or falling. Or causing 10s of thousands of dollars in damage because I didnt tighten a bolt. Arthritis is likely. But it's still incredibly rare, and mainly in your control. All my coworkers are major injury free.

I just did a search on "Boron and arthritis". It was helpful but didn't give you the information I thought it would. After Boron and arthritis I'd search on "Boron and arthritis and region" --> "Epidemiological studies suggest a link between geographic dietary boron intake and regional arthritis rates, with areas consuming higher boron having substantially lower arthritis prevalence"

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#305

Post by atleastoptimal »

archagon wrote: post #239
atleastoptimal wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, sadly the most principled will have to contend with the world passing them by when it turns out those principles are dead weight to capital momentum. You could have made the same point during the dawn of the industrial revolution: that purchasing any product of a machine would be betraying your friends who have spent years honing their craft, but either way, people will still opt for the machine because it's 10x…

> AI is good enough now that you can't claim that you aren't using it because you're upholding some higher standard of quality. It is simply a matter of it offending your sensibilities. AI is also great at the mechanics of writing. Should people stop writing? Obviously not. Is there value to coding other than compiling without errors and producing a plausible program as output? Obviously yes. LLMs can’t think and the…

> LLMs can’t think

What is your definition of thinking?

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#306

Post by tavavex »

drdaeman wrote: post #177
nekusar wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is that LLM writing has an inhuman voice. Of course we know the tells. Not only this, but that. You're exactly right! — The woman and man AI voice endemic to YouTube and ilk is also tremendously off putting. M5Stack has a bunch of these videos, and it devalues what they're doing. And then... Transformer "art". It is some of the worst drek I've seen. I smell it a mile away. It's easily seen by slop englis…

> I'm completely sure management LOVES it cause its cheap and devalues humans. And the tragic bit is that instead of educating them about the pitfalls so everyone's on the same page, a lot of brave hotheads are literally calling for a class war

> educating them about the pitfalls so everyone's on the same page

What? They know what they're doing, they have access to the same information we do. There's just too much money in it for them to care about irrelevant things like product quality or the continued employment of anyone but themselves. Their prosperity and usefulness in their position is fully reliant on them not being on the same page. Their incentives are completely different from ours.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#307

Post by cleaning »

gafferongames wrote: post #246
cleaning wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to be that guy but you're likely holding the tool wrong. Being an expert does not guarantee you're one of those people who can easily get good results from an (frontier) LLM.

And how many games have you shipped?

[dead]

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#308

Post by svobodovic »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #227
rglynn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by easy? Do you mean FAANG or equivalent salary? What level of seniority? Can speak to my experience that if you are a senior engineer in London the market is relatively easy at the moment (or was at the beginning of the year) even with no connections.

How much does it pay, relatively? The last time I looked into jobs in the UK and in Europe, I could make more money flipping burgers in the US.

Depends on how you look at it. For example, the average salary in my Central European country is about 27k USD per year. I work in an IT/telco business and make about a double that. While it may sound very low for US standards, I own a house, a car, and go for a few non-lavish vacations each year with my family (wife makes about a third of my pay). I don't stress about health expenses, and have a good small town community just outside the capital city. People who work in senior management in tech, or work for international corporations can make upwards of 120k yearly, and will have a very comfortable life where I'm at. It can't be directly compared I suppose.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#309

Post by danaris »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #305
archagon wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI is good enough now that you can't claim that you aren't using it because you're upholding some higher standard of quality. It is simply a matter of it offending your sensibilities. AI is also great at the mechanics of writing. Should people stop writing? Obviously not. Is there value to coding other than compiling without errors and producing a plausible program as output? Obviously yes. LLMs can’t think and the…

> LLMs can’t think What is your definition of thinking?

Well, for one thing, it has to have consciousness behind it.

And yes, I know that humans are conscious.

And yes, I know that LLMs are not.

You can throw out loads of BS philosophy to try to obfuscate these clear, obvious facts, but they both remain true.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#310

Post by h4kunamata »

gib444 wrote: post #280
h4kunamata wrote: post #247

DevOps isn't different!! 4 months to land a contract that lasted 2 years, and due to laws it could no longer be extended. 5 months to land another contract that only lasted 6 months, this is my last week at this place. I have been working in IT for near 20 years now, from dial-up to ADSL, from on-prem to cloud, from software to SaaS, from manual everything to GitHub and anything CI/CD related, from VM to Kubernetes,…

> 5 months to land another contract that only lasted 6 months My god this is insanity

>My god this is insanity

At some point in your life, I am still in my middle 30s, things are just another Tuesday in the office.

If I could give a piece of advice especially for the younger generation, if you earn $1000k, do not spend $2000k

Always have an emergency saving to help you stay afloat, there is nothing worse than being unemployed and having financial stress. It should be at least a month worth of your living, preferable 3-half year.

If you spend $5k a month with bills, shopping and etc, you should have at least $15k in a saving account with another bank.

The way how things are going, soon a year worth of saving is gonna be mandatory haha

I do, to an extent, expect things to be easier than June 2025 when AI was still pure hype, but like I said, I will give it a try another month or so whilte trying to shift away from IT.

But until AI doesn't take another deep( datacenters contructions delayed or being cancelled altogether already, companies noticing the enshitification, stock market bubble that is already poping, companies hiring engineers back because AI hype cooled down), things will get a lot worse before getting any better.

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