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Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

blog.jakesaunders.dev

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Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#361

Post by GeoAtreides »

xvector wrote: post #345
GeoAtreides wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is the reaction of so many people, once their menial work gets automated, "oh no, my menial work is automated." Why is it not "sweet, now I can do bigger/better/more ambitious things?" because i have rent to pay? old age to prepare for? why is it so hard to understand most people are not rich, that the cost of living is high, and that most people are VERY afraid their jobs will be automated away? why is so hard…

Because there is always work to do. It is true that demand will drop for those that don't take initiative and aren't sure what to do now that AI can do their repetitive tasks. However, demand will surge for those that can think critically about how to utilize AI to empower businesses. "Software engineer" as a profession is rapidly getting automated at my company, and yet our SWEs are delivering more value than ever b…

you might want to brush up on the short and medium consequences of the industrial revolution and the dark satanic mills where children were maimed or where people worked for 12h a day in horrendous conditions.

Do you think because 2 dev are now super productive with AI, the company will keep the other average 30 devs? no, of course not, they will fire and pocket the difference. Same for other industries, where AI will slowly diffuse like a poisonous gas and displace jobs and people, leaving behind a crippled white collar class. The profits will not trickle down and the increased productivity will be a hatchet, not a plough.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#362

Post by jesterson »

delbronski wrote: post #172

AI is starting to look like a net negative for humanity. I remember the early days of OpenAI. I was super excited about it. There was a new space to uncover and learn about. I was hopeful. Now I have this love/hate relationship with it. Claude Code is amazing. I use it everyday because it makes me so much more efficient at my job. But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day. A…

I am having similar thoughts.

To add to list of questions - it's undeniable the AI is making humans dumber by doing mental job previously done by humans. So why we spend so much energy making AI smarter and fellow humans dumber?

Shouldn't we be moving in opposite direction - invest in people instead of some software and greedy psychopaths at helm of large companies behind it?

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#363

Post by senordevnyc »

technothrasher wrote: post #351
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach CS at a university in Spain. Most people here are in denial. It is obvious to me that we need to go back to grading based on in-person exams, but in our last university reform (which tried to copy the US/UK in many aspects) there was so much political posturing and indoctrination about exams being evil and coursework having to take the fore that now most people just can't admit the truth before their own eyes…

> Except that if a student wants to learn without using them My son, who is a freshman at a major university in NYC, when he said to his freshman English professor that he wanted to write his papers without using AI, was told that this was "too advanced for a freshman English class" and that using AI was a requirement.

Now colleges will have to try and detect if you didn't use AI!

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#364

Post by senordevnyc »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #361
xvector wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is always work to do. It is true that demand will drop for those that don't take initiative and aren't sure what to do now that AI can do their repetitive tasks. However, demand will surge for those that can think critically about how to utilize AI to empower businesses. "Software engineer" as a profession is rapidly getting automated at my company, and yet our SWEs are delivering more value than ever b…

you might want to brush up on the short and medium consequences of the industrial revolution and the dark satanic mills where children were maimed or where people worked for 12h a day in horrendous conditions. Do you think because 2 dev are now super productive with AI, the company will keep the other average 30 devs? no, of course not, they will fire and pocket the difference. Same for other industries, where AI wil…

where children were maimed or where people worked for 12h a day in horrendous conditions

Such things were super uncommon before the industrial revolution, I'm sure.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#365

Post by llmthrow0827 »

_doctor_love wrote: post #153

This might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way. I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experienc…

This would be a more compelling argument if the conversations weren't so extremely dull and derivative, with most of the articles written in LLMspeak. I see a lot of discussion and not a lot of substance; articles and discussions about AI have a much smaller chance of being compelling compared to any other technical subject posted on HN.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#366

Post by throwawaytea »

deadbabe wrote: post #328
_doctor_love wrote: post #153

This might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way. I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experienc…

If you have to really understand software development to be a good user of AI, we’re screwed. All the best users of AI we’ll ever have already exist I think.

That's a good point. Im a novice self taught developer that somehow pushed through and made a decent PM tool for the construction industry. It works, if your users aren't malicious or too demanding.

Now I'm working on a second project, all with AI. I haven't written a single line. It works better than a non programmer would make because I knew what to ask for. But I'll admit I'm not learning anything.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#367

Post by strangattractor »

_doctor_love wrote: post #153

This might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way. I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experienc…

Agreed - another tool in the old tool pouch. I find it fascinating in that it provides insight into the role of language in intelligence. Certainly not AGI but makes ELIZA seem neolithic;)

I am amazed at the incredible things it can do - only to turnaround and not be able to do a simple task a child can do. Just like people.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#369

Post by AnimalMuppet »

eloisant wrote: post #271
djeastm wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any thoughts on what the next generation of software devs is going to look like without as much manual experience?

When C arrived, programmers wonder how software devs would look like when they won't have assembly experience. Then the same happened with languages that managed memory. And with IDE that could refactor your code in a click and autocomplete API calls. And with Stack Overflow where people copy/pasted code they didn't understand.

It started before that. When assemblers came out, (some) programmers worried about losing touch with the machine if they didn't have to know the instructions in octal.
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