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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'

#481

Post by hdgvhicv »

tpoacher wrote: post #366
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.

My cousin, when he got his first job, he managed to wipe the database clean on his first day at work. (classic, I know) The seniors were very understanding, and more importantly it raised important questions about backups, dev vs prod pipelines, etc. But you can bet my cousin was super embarrassed by it, and saving face was a big part of it.

Seniors should be the ones embarrassed for giving anyone, let alone a new junior, such level of access

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

#482

Post by int_19h »

never_inline wrote: post #470
alexgotoi wrote: post #192

The thing people miss in these “replace juniors with AI” takes is that juniors were never mainly about cheap hands on keyboards. They’re the only people in the org who are still allowed to ask “dumb” questions without losing face, and those questions are often the only signal you get that your abstractions are nonsense. What AI does is remove a bunch of the humiliating, boring parts of being junior: hunting for the r…

If that was the case I would be chilling during my junior years. Juniors are usually given either grunt or low priority work while seniors get more "important" work. OTOH, it takes a lot to get your questions on RIGHT EARS when you're a junior, so wouldn't agree with your characterization at all.

It really depends on the workspace. Some places will give juniors serious work items specifically to grow them.

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

#483

Post by stillworks »

And yet, they won't like it if aspiring SDEs use AI to "assist" when interviewing :D

Just yesterday had a coding interview (not any FAANG) and the interviewer wanted a screen share and also checked my IDE settings to make sure "AI" was turned off.

Not that I intended to or even intend to use LLM based tooling for interviews.

Although having said that, if I intended to, interviewers won't find out. Interviews should always be done in person. (That took a different tangent... sorry)

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

#484

Post by imiric »

versteegen wrote: post #474
imiric wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not swayed by appeals to authority, but this is a supremely bad take. "AI" tools are most useful in the hands of experienced developers, not juniors. It's seniors who have the knowledge and capability to review the generated output, and decide whether the code will cause more issues when it's merged, or if it's usable if they tweak and adapt it in certain ways. A junior developer has no such skills. Their only ap…

> A junior developer has no such skills. Their only approach will be to run the code, test whether it fulfills the requirements, and, if they're thorough, try to understand and test it to the best of their abilities. This is also a supremely bad take... well, really it's mainly the way you worded it that's bad. Juniors have skills, natural aptitudes, as much intelligence on average as other programmers, and often eve…

You're right, that was harshly worded. I meant to contrast it with the capability of making a quality assessment of the generated output, and understanding how and what to change, if necessary. This is something that only experts in any field are capable of. I didn't mean to imply that people lacking experience are incapable of attaining these skills, let alone that they're less intelligent. It's just that the field is positioned against them in a way that they might never reach this level. Some will, but it will be much harder for most. This wouldn't be an issue if these new tools were infallible, but we're far from that stage.

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

#485

Post by platevoltage »

omnimus wrote: post #160
DiscourseFan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be programmers of the old ways, but AI is basically code 2.0, there are now a lot of things that are AI specific that those with traditional software development skills can’t do.

Like what exactly?

It's really good at writing Brainfuck code.

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

#486

Post by cakealert »

riskable wrote: post #61
azemetre wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people are working on destroying the planet to make more money, they absolutely do not care. Our society isn't set up to punish them, but encourage such behavior to even more extremes (see datacenter build outs causing water shortages, electricity hikes, and cancer in poor communities; nearly every politician capitulating on such actions because they don't know better).

I wish people would get off the "AI is the worst thing for the environment" bandwagon. AI and data centers as a whole aren't even in the top 100 emitters of pollution and never will be. If you want to complain about tech companies ruining the environment, look towards policies that force people to come into the office. Pointless commutes are far, far worse for the environment than all data centers combined. Complaini…

The answer to that is simple: They hate AI and the environment angle is just an excuse, much like their concern over AI art. Human psychology is such that many of these people actually believe the excuse too.

It helps when you put yourself in the shoes of people like that and ask yourself, if I find out tomorrow that the evidence that AI is actually good for the environment is stronger, will I believe it? Will it even matter for my opposition to AI? The answer is no.

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

#487

Post by watwut »

awesome_dude wrote: post #404
jamblewamble wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking questions is a good thing but that doesnt mean ALL questions. It doesnt include questions you could answer with a google search or by reading documentation, obviously.

Got it - ask questions, but not ones that you already know where the answer is. edit: well, except when you search the documentation and get (literally) 70+ results because you don't know the exact phrasing used in the self hosted wiki... Or, when it's a question that is domain specific (meaning that the SME is supposed to know it, which you only know if you are... an SME...) etc

> Got it - ask questions, but not ones that you already know where the answer is.

More of, ask do the quick google search or check the doc before asking that question. If the quick search or look into the doc does not contain the answer, ask.

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

#488

Post by amrocha »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #356
amrocha wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. In my experience AI does most of the work and the juniors already poor skills atrophy. Then a senior engineer has to review AI slop and tell the junior to roll the AI dice again.

I've seen it go both ways. As usual, a good manager should be able to navigate this.

Ok, but not all managers are good and not all situations are navigable.

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

#489

Post by simgt »

neilv wrote: post #395
rossdavidh wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big, and little-discussed, problem across many industries is that there is no "pipeline" inside any company. Since the 1980's, the idea that you develop your own talent has fallen by the wayside. You hire it from other companies. Inside software, the issue may be bigger, but it exists in many others as well.

Does AWS intend to have that pipeline within the company, starting with juniors, like this talk implies?

They don't, that's why their CEO needs everyone else to believe they need to keep on hiring juniors aggressively so AWS can poach them a couple years down the line if needed

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

#490

Post by Karliss »

zahlman wrote: post #418
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.

> 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.

Often it's less about learning from the bugfix itself but the journey. Learning how various pieces of software operate and fit together, learning the tools you tried for investigating and debugging the problem.
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