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I'm OK being left behind, thanks

shkspr.mobi

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Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#411

Post by adelie »

zephen wrote: post #229
augusto-moura wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I get a bit annoyed is companies forcing AI tools, getting usage metrics and actively hunting the engineers that don't use the tool "enough", I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool. Even in the past, aside from technical limitaions, you were not required to use enough of a tool. It just sounds like a giant scheme to burn through tokens and give money to the AI corps, and tech directors…

I don't doubt you, but I'm out of the loop. Who does this?

my company (mid-size, publicly traded) is mandating [x] hours spent on AI per week. i have no idea how they're planning on measuring this, and as far as i can tell, neither does management.

suppose it's better than counting lines of code, though.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#412

Post by chasd00 »

samiv wrote: post #62
bogzz wrote: post #29

It's a horrifying feeling facing the possibility that the career I spent so much time and money to get into is fading away. Sure, LLMs are not there yet, and they might not ever quite get there. But will companies start hiring again? If productivity has gone up, and it seems like it has, then no. So, a decade of hanging by a thread, getting by and doubling down on CS, hoping that the job market sees an uptick? Or try…

I cannot but agree. It's a massive skill leveling where software development is transforming from high skilled coding to low skilled prompting. For an old dog like myself it feels an unjust rug pull.

I think looking at what the web did to the journalism industry as a model to what's happening to the software dev industry is worth while. Journalism didn't go away but it did completely change. Many old school journalists just couldn't adapt and left the industry, many papers died too.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#413

Post by ge96 »

If this is about vibe-coding.

I remember when React was the hotness and I was still using jQuery, I didn't learn it immediatley, maybe a couple years later is when I finally started to use React. I believe this delayed my chance in getting a job especially around that time when hiring was good eg. 2016 or so.

With vibe-coding it just sucks the joy out of it. I can't feel happy if I can just say "make this" and it comes out. I enjoy the process... which yeah you can say it's "dumb/waste of time" to bother with typing out code with your hands. For me it isn't about just "here's the running code", I like architecting it, deciding how it goes together which yeah you can do that with prompts.

Idk I'm fortunate right now using tools like Cursor/Windsurf/Copilot is not mandatory. I think in the long run though I will get out of working in software professionally for a company.

I do use AI though, every time I search something and read Google's AI summary, which you'd argue it would be faster to just use a built in thing that types for you vs. copy paste.

Which again... what is there to be proud of if you can just ask this magic box to produce something and claim it as your own. "I made this".

Even design can be done with AI too (mechanical/3D design) then you put it into a 3D printer, where is the passion/personality...

Anyway yeah, my own thoughts, I'm a luddite or whatever

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#414

Post by danny_codes »

muskstinks wrote: post #395

Crypto was interesting to think through and it was clear very early on how many flaws it has. It basically just moved the goal post to level deeper and it was quite an eye opener how few people even understood the major flaw of crypto: You can only do crypto savely with anything on blockchain and it has not solved any real issue off blockchain (which means you can literlay just send crypto to each other and thats it)…

That hasn’t been my observation and seems unlikely to be true. I suspect AI is a wicked learning environment. Narrow experience may hinder rather than help

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#415

Post by mh- »

skydhash wrote: post #406
mh- wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think telling people what their job is counts as micro management . Part of their job right now is staying abreast of technological developments and experimenting with new ways of working. Re: some of them being upset about it- probably. Some people are also upset about being required to use Jira. I personally dislike using Okta.

It is micromanagement. If the job are not being done, the best way is to investigate what current practices are blocking people from doing it (the answer is probably meetings and bad communication). The worst way is to present a tool as a silver bullet for tasks you’re not doing and not accountable for.

Where am I presenting the tool as a silver bullet? You seem to be confusing me with someone else in this thread, or making the mistake of turning this into a polarized conversation of "AI is a panacea" vs "AI is worthless".

I engaged in the thread in good faith, and am transparent about what I'm doing and why. I also clarified that part of the job in my org is experimenting with these tools.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#416

Post by bigstrat2003 »

postalcoder wrote: post #173
stavros wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely having a blast, but I agree with the author. You're not going to get left behind, the "getting left behind" rhetoric was just cryptocurrency pump-and-dumpers. It's fine to wait and not engage if you don't want to.

I agree with you, which is why I think it's a straw man. How many real devs are actually banging the "you're getting left behind!" drums?

I have personally heard people say this at work. It's not a strawman, there really is a message of "you'll be left behind" out there.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#417

Post by Hasslequest »

dakolli wrote: post #92

I love the Cryptocurrency analogy. The LLM hype monkeys are the same people that were screaming that NFTs/Digital Art was going to replace all the traditional art in gallaries in 10 years. They are literally the same people, and they are all addicted to money and hype. Ignore them.. Did handmade Swiss watch movements lose all demand when Asia started mass manufacturing watches? No. There is always going to be more de…

You can run the LLMs on your own machine

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#418

Post by bitwize »

SoftTalker wrote: post #403
bitwize wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers check your work history. You'd better be able to back up having the amount of experience they require with paid, value-delivering work at past employers, or they'll pass.

Many actually do not check anything.

I've never actually encountered one who didn't. Just like I've never been able to actually quit on Tuesday and walk into my next role on Thursday the way Hackernews told me "any halfway decent developer" should be able to do. They tend to ask about this sort of thing in interviews too and if you prove not to have the required background, you are considered weak and filtered out.

Anyways, checking happens often enough that the risk of being considered a liar and a fraud for claiming experience you don't have is high.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#419

Post by chasd00 »

samiv wrote: post #355
tofuahdude wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why unjust? Who promised you that the way software is made will stay static? Our software industry has specialized, for decades, in "rug pulling" / changing / "disrupting" other industries on a massive scale. I find it pretty ironic when engineers make these statements in that context.

Whether you like it or not but the society is built on certain social constructs and agreements. Do you think it's fair that when the society moves underneath, the capitalistic system moves its tectonic plates it's the individual who has to bear the cost of that? Abd let's be clear only software devs are just sucking it up. You think lawyers and doctors would allow themselves to be laid off en masse and be replaced w…

i made this point a few comments up but i think what's happening to the software dev industry is what happened to the journalism industry when the web really came into its own and everyone was now a journalist. There were even books written by tech people about how great "creative destruction" is heh now the shoe is on the other foot. How many "old dinosaurs" did web development and software dev in general put out of business? My neck is on the line too but even i have to chuckle at that a little bit.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#420

Post by aleph_minus_one »

mahemm wrote: post #370
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m saying someone pursuing that portfolio will probably end up underperforming an index. This holds if you consider "underperforming" to be a comparison of expected values. On the other hand, if you consider "probability of getting a really huge payoff" to be the measure by which the investments are compared, the index fund is the one that looses in the comparison.

Would you be comfortable using this same logic to invest most of your net worth in lottery tickets/betting on black in a casino? If not, I'd be curious to hear what is different in that for you.

> Would you be comfortable using this same logic to invest most of your net worth in lottery tickets/betting on black in a casino?

I wouldn't "invest" in lottery tickets because for these p is far too small (exception: if I found a loophole in the system of the lottery, which has been found for some lotteries). For casinos, there is additionally the very important aspect that the casino will scam you (if you start winning money (for example by having found some clever strategy that gives you an advantage), the security will escort you out of the building and ban you from entering the casino again).

So, to give an explanation of the differences:

- Because "the typical run" for such an investment will be loosing, you should never invest your whole net worth (or a significant fraction thereof) into such an investment. The advice that I personally often give is to use index funds or stock investments for generating the money for investments that are much more risky, but have huge possible payouts.

- You should only do such an "early investment" if you have a significant information advantage over the average person. Such an advantage is plausible, for example, if you are deeply interested in technology topics

- Lottery tickets have an insanely small p (as defined in my comment). You only do "early investments" into topics where the p is still small, but not absurdly bad. The difference is that for lottery tickets the p is basically well-known. On the other hand, for "early investments", people can only estimate the p. Because of your information advantage from the previous point, you can estimate the p much better than other people, which gains you a strong advantage in picking the right "early investments" to choose.

But be aware that this is a strategy for risk-affine people. If you aren't, you better stay, for example, with index funds.

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