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AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

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Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#441

Post by bdangubic »

jason_oster wrote: post #365
bdangubic wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this can only happen in a shitty places with incompetent team

Every team has incompetence at some level. If every team was perfect, there would be no more work left to do, because they would always get the right product built correctly the first time. No bug fix releases, no feature refreshes, no version 2. Beware, your ego may steer you astray.

been hacking 31 years with the same ego but you never know. and if I learned anything in these years is to get out the heck out of any place that treats people not by their skills but by how long ago their Mom gave them birth

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#443

Post by goosejuice »

nevir wrote: post #247

Juniors are also more likely to be the MOST proficient/comfortable with AI tooling. Pair them with a senior so they can learn engineering best practices: And now you've also just given your senior engineers some extra experience/insights into how to more effectively leverage AI. It accelerates the org to have juniors (really: a good mix of all experience levels)

> Juniors are also more likely to be the MOST proficient/comfortable with AI tooling.

Why? That seems unlikely to me. That's like saying juniors are likely the most comfortable with jj, zed, or vscode.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#444

Post by marcus_holmes »

doctaj wrote: post #436
rsanek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without losing face"? What culture are you referring to? The Western companies I have worked at do not discourage such questions -- in fact, it's often the sign of someone very senior when they ask a seemingly 'dumb' question that others have taken for granted.

There’s also the benefit of being naive - like, juniors can be seriously audacious when they haven’t been burned a million times. I miss having excitement and optimism.

the flip side of this is having juniors create some wildly unrealistic expectations in other business units if we're not careful ;)

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#445

Post by thunky »

lvl155 wrote: post #189
orliesaurus wrote: post #37

Interesting take... I'm seeing a pattern... People think AI can do it all... BUT I see juniors often are the ones who actually understand AI tools better than seniors... That's what AWS CEO points out... He said juniors are usually the most experienced with AI tools, so cutting them makes no sense... He also mentioned they are usually the least expensive, so there's little cost saving... AND he warned that without a…

7/10 senior devs (usually fellas 50+) will get mad at you for trying to use Claude Code. Me: “dude it writes better code than crap you write in your mush middle-age brain.” Also me: “I also have mush brain.” I think LLM is a reflection of human intelligence. If we humans become dumber as a result of LLM, LLMs will also become dumber. I’d like to think in some dystopian world, LLM’s trained from pre 2023 data will be…

> 7/10 senior devs (usually fellas 50+) will get mad at you for trying to use Claude Code

Ironic because the junior has much more to lose. The 50+ can probably coast across the finish line.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#446

Post by hyperadvanced »

golly_ned wrote: post #430
zahlman wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't learn. That's not what I'm trying to do- I'm trying to fix the bug. Hmm. I'm pretty sure AI is going to lead us to a deskilling crash. Nothing is preventing you from studying how the bugfix works once it's in place. Nor is there any reason this use of AI should cause you to lose skills you already have.

I haven't seen things work like this in practice, where heavy AI users end up being able to generating a solution, then later grasp it and learn from it, with any kind of effectiveness or deep understanding. It's like reading the solution to a math proof instead of proving it yourself. Or writing a summary of a book compared to reading one. The effort towards seeing the design space and choosing a particular solution…

Ironically, AI is really good at the adding tests later thing. It can really help round out test coverage for a piece of code and create some reusable stuff that can inspire you to test even more.

I’m not a super heavy AI user but I’ve vibe coded a few things for the frontend with it. It has helped me understand how you lay out react apps a little better and how the legos that React gives you work. Probably far less than if I had done it from scratch and read a book but sometimes a working prototype is so much more valuable to a product initiative than learning a programming language is that you would be absolutely burning time and value to not vibe code the prototype

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#447

Post by thunky »

omnimus wrote: post #146
pnathan wrote: post #101

I - senior - can patch an application in an unknown language and framework with the AI. I know enough to tell it to stop the wildly stupid ideas. But I don't learn. That's not what I'm trying to do- I'm trying to fix the bug. Hmm. I'm pretty sure AI is going to lead us to a deskilling crash. Food for thought.

I think the temptation to use AI is so strong that it will be those who will keep learning who will be valuable in future. Maybe by asking AI to explain/teach instead of asking for solution direclty. Or not using AI at all.

> I think the temptation to use AI is so strong that it will be those who will keep learning who will be valuable in future.

AI is an excellent teacher for someone that wants to learn.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#448

Post by Madmallard »

I don't really understand this comment from the CEO.

Does he not understand the people making millions or billions off AI literally do not care?

They fully are committed to seeing if they can do away with having to employ people all together.

They want techno-feudalism.

Sam Altman and the ilk are so anti-humanity seeming in interviews it's really disgusting that we allow them to be in a position of power at all.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#449

Post by tharkun__ »

socketcluster wrote: post #399
rsanek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without losing face"? What culture are you referring to? The Western companies I have worked at do not discourage such questions -- in fact, it's often the sign of someone very senior when they ask a seemingly 'dumb' question that others have taken for granted.

Yep, I fully agree with this view and I find that it's seniors who ask the 'dumb' questions. Everyone is worried about losing face in this precarious economy... But seniors are able to ask really smart questions as well so even their dumb questions sound smart... They can usually spin dumb questions into a smart questions by going one level deeper and bringing nuance into the discussion. This may be difficult to do f…

    My experience as a team lead working with a lot of juniors is that they are terrified of losing face
So much this! Both from my experience as Junior very many years ago and also with Juniors (and not so Juniors) today.

    tend to talk a big game
Very big game. Claude does too. The kind of BS it spews in very confident language is amazing.

    As a team lead, I try to use language which expresses any doubts or knowledge gaps I have so that others in my team feel comfortable doing it as well
Agree. I also often literally say "Dumb idea: X" to try and suss out areas that may have been left by the wayside and under-explored or where assumptions have been made without verifying them. It's amazing how often even "Seniors"+ will spew assumptions as fact without verification. It's very annoying actually.

    superpower
How do you actually do this tho? I would love to do this but it seems hard to find an actual "superpower". Like where does "super" power start vs. "yeah they're better at this than others but definitely not as good as me or "person X that definitely does have that superpower". Like when can you start encouraging so to speak,

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#450

Post by deepsquirrelnet »

chaos_emergent wrote: post #137
beAbU wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the struggling with docs and learning how and where to find the answers part of the learning process? I would argue a machine that short circuits the process of getting stuck in obtuse documentation is actually harmful long term...

Isn't the struggle of sifting through a labyrinth of physical books and learning how and where to find the right answers part of the learning process? I would argue a machine that short-circuits the process of getting stuck in obtuse books is actually harmful long term...

It’s an interesting question isn’t it? There are obvious qualities about being able to find information quickly and precisely. However, the search becomes much narrower, and what must inevitably result is a homogeneity of outcomes.

Eventually we will have to somehow convince AI of new and better ways of doing things. It’ll be propaganda campaigns waged by humans to convince God to deploy new instructions to her children.

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