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Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

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Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#561

Post by insane_dreamer »

daveguy wrote: post #252
insane_dreamer wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll happen gradually over time, with more pressure on programmers to "get more done". I think it's useful to look at what has already happened at another, much smaller profession -- translators -- as a precursor to what will happen with programmers. 1. translation software does a mediocre job, barely useful as a tool; all jobs are safe 2. translation software does a decent job, now expected to be used as time-savin…

Yes, but in all 4 of these steps you are literally describing the job transformer LLMs were designed to do. We are at 1 (mediocre job) for LLMs in coding right now. Maybe 2 in a few limited cases (eg boilerplate). There's no reason to assume LLMs will ever perform at 3 for coding. For the same reason natural language programming languages like COBOL are no longer used -- natural language is not precise.

It seems the consensus is that we will reach level 3 pretty quickly given the pace of development in the past 2 years. Not sure about 4 but I’d say in 10 years we’ll be there.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#562

Post by rcxdude »

zozbot234 wrote: post #489
marcosdumay wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sophistication doesn't imply any increase or decrease in "boringness".

The dictionary definition of 'sophisticated' is "changed in a deceptive or misleading way; not genuine or pure; unrefined, adulterated, impure." Pretty much the polar opposite of "boring" in a technology context.

That is an extremely archaic definition that's pretty far from modern usage, especially in a tech context

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#563

Post by whstl »

zozbot234 wrote: post #489
marcosdumay wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sophistication doesn't imply any increase or decrease in "boringness".

The dictionary definition of 'sophisticated' is "changed in a deceptive or misleading way; not genuine or pure; unrefined, adulterated, impure." Pretty much the polar opposite of "boring" in a technology context.

No, this is not "the" dictionary definition.

This definition is obsolete according to Wikitionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sophisticated (Wikitionary is the first result that shows when I type your words)

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#564

Post by epcoa »

cozzyd wrote: post #537
nuancebydefault wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is now that the LLM GPS will lead you to the wrong place once a day on average, and then you still need either open the map and study where you are and figure out the route, or refine the destination address and pray it will bring you to the correct place. Such a great analogy!

Try asking your GPS for the Western blue line stop on the Chicago L. (There are two of them and it will randomly pick one)

What is “your GPS” meant here. With Google Maps and Apple Maps it consistently picks the closest one (this being within minutes to both but much closer to one), which seems reasonable. Maybe not ideal as when either of these apps will bring up a disambiguation for a super market chain or similar, but I’m not witnessing randomness.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#565

Post by stpedgwdgfhgdd »

Yesterday, using Aider and an openai model, forgot which one it picks by default; i asked it to check some Go code for consistency. It made a few changes, some ok, but also some that just did not compile. (The model did not understand the local scoping of vars in an if-then clause)

It is just not reliable enough for mainstream Enterprise development. Nice for a new snake game….

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#566

Post by marcosdumay »

Draiken wrote: post #86
netcan wrote: post #67

Our ability to predict technological "replacement" is pretty shoddy. Take banking for example. ATMs are literally called "teller machines." Internet banking is a way of "automating banking." Besides those, every administrative aspect of banking went from paper to computer. Do banks employ fewer people? Is it a smaller industry? No. Banks grew steadily over these decades. It's actually shocking how little network enab…

Yes banks employ less people. In my country there are now account managers handling hundreds of clients virtually. Most of the local managers got fired. I find it easy to say from our privileged position that "tech might replace workers but it'll be fine". Even if all the replaced people aren't unemployed, salaries go down and standards of living for them fall off a cliff. Tech innovation destroys lives in our curren…

> Even if all the replaced people aren't unemployed, salaries go down and standards of living for them fall off a cliff.

Salaries of the remaining people tend to go up when that happens. And costs tend to go down for the general public.

Owners are actually supposed to only see a temporary benefit during the change, and then go back to what they had before. If that's not how things are happening around you¹, consult with your local market-competition regulator why they are failing to do their job.

1 - Yeah, I know it's not how things are happening around you. That doesn't change the point.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#567

Post by SkyBelow »

larve wrote: post #469

This is missing the fact that budding programmers will also embrace these technologies, in order to get stuff done and working and fulfill their curiosity. They will in fact grow up to be much more "AI native" than current more senior programmers, except that they are turbocharging their exploration and learning by having, well, a full team of AI programmers at their disposal. I see it like when I came of age in the…

AI native like recent digital natives, who have more time using software but far less time exploring how it works and less overall success at using digital tools?

AI reminds me of calculators. For someone who is proficient in math, they boost speed. For those learning math, it becomes a crutch and eventually stops their ability to learn further because their mind can't build upon principles fully outsourced to the machine.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#569

Post by sarchertech »

falcor84 wrote: post #428
sarchertech wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology to allow business people to create POCs has been around for a long time.

All previous examples have been of the "no code" variety, where you press buttons and it controls presets that the creators of the authoring tool have prepared for you. This is the first time where you can talk to it and it writes arbitrary code for you. You can argue that it's not a good idea, but it is a novel development.

A no code solution at its most basic level is nothing more or less than a compiler.

You wouldn’t argue that writing in a high level language doesn’t let you produce arbitrary code because the compiler is just spitting out presets its author prepared for you.

There are 2 main differences between using an LLM to build an app for you and using a no code solution with a visual language.

1. The source code is English (which is definitely more expressive).

2. The output isn’t deterministic (even with temperature set to 0 which is probably not what you want anyway)

Both 1 and 2 are terrible ideas. I’m not sure which is worse.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#570

Post by wesselbindt »

woah wrote: post #544
wesselbindt wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as far as I can see it's the amount and quality of training data that counts Well there's your reason. OS code is not as in demand or prevalent as crud web app code, so there's less relevant data to train your models on.

The OS code that exists is much higher quality so the signal to noise ratio is much better

I think arguably there's still a quantity issue, but I'm no expert on LLMs. Plus I hear the windows source code is a bit of a nightmare. But for every windows there's a TempleOS I suppose.
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