Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

semiengineering.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 231 posts

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#61

Post by the_af »

firasd wrote: post #15

It's puzzling to me that all this theorizing doesn't just look at the actual effects of AI. It's very non-intuitive For example the fact that AI can code as well as Torvalds doesn't displace his economic value. On the contrary he pays for a subscription so he can vibe code! The actual work AI has displaced is stuff like: freelance translation, graphic illustration, 'content writing' (writing seo optimized pages for G…

I think AI displacing graphics illustrators is a tragedy.

It's not that I love ad illustrations, but it's often a source of income for artists who want to be doing something more meaningful with their artwork. And even if I don't care for the ads themselves, for the artists it's also a form of training.

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#62

Post by the_af »

SoftTalker wrote: post #33

"Most people who drive cars now couldn’t find the radiator cap if they were paid to, and that’s fine." That's not fine IMO. That is a basic bit of knowledge about a car and if you don't know where the radiator cap is you will eventually have to pay through the nose to someone who does know (and possibly be stranded somewhere). Knowing how to check and fill coolant isn't like knowing how to rebuild a transmission. It'…

This reminds me of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". One of the themes Pirsig explores is that some people simply don't want to understand how stuff they depend on works. They just expect it to be excellent and have no breakdowns, and hope for the best (I'm oversimplifying his opinion, of course). So Pirsig's friend on his road trip just doesn't want to understand how his bike works, it's good quality and it seldom breaks, so he is almost offended when Pirsig tells him he could fix some breakage using a tin can and some basic knowledge of how bikes work.

Lest anyone here thinks I feel morally superior: I somewhat identify with Pirsig's friend. Some things I've decided I don't want to understand how they work, and when they break down I'm always at a loss!

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#63

Post by fapjacks »

xXSLAYERXx wrote: post #10

Senior dev here 15 years experience just turned 50 have family blah blah. I've been contracting for the last two years. The org is just starting to use Claude. I've been delegating - well copy pasting - into chatgpt which has to be the laziest way to leverage AI. I've been so successful (meaning haven't had to do anything really except argue with chatgpt when it goes off on some tangent) with this approach that I can…

Weird side question, but any chance you use(d) the same name on Playstation Network?

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#65

Post by imiric »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #6

I am very tired of seeing every random person's speculation (framed as real insight) on what's going to happen as they try to signify that they are super involved in AI and super on top of it and therefore still worthy of value and importance in the economy.

Agreed, but I'd add tech influencers and celebrities to the top of that list, especially those invested in the "AI" hype cycle. At least the perspective of a random engineer is less likely to be tainted by their brand and agenda, and more likely to have genuine insight.

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#66

Post by andersmurphy »

firasd wrote: post #15

It's puzzling to me that all this theorizing doesn't just look at the actual effects of AI. It's very non-intuitive For example the fact that AI can code as well as Torvalds doesn't displace his economic value. On the contrary he pays for a subscription so he can vibe code! The actual work AI has displaced is stuff like: freelance translation, graphic illustration, 'content writing' (writing seo optimized pages for G…

Biggest displacement has to be commenting on HN.

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#67

Post by bojan »

firasd wrote: post #15

It's puzzling to me that all this theorizing doesn't just look at the actual effects of AI. It's very non-intuitive For example the fact that AI can code as well as Torvalds doesn't displace his economic value. On the contrary he pays for a subscription so he can vibe code! The actual work AI has displaced is stuff like: freelance translation, graphic illustration, 'content writing' (writing seo optimized pages for G…

> freelance translation

As someone who has to switch between three languages every day, fixing the text is one of my favourite usages of LLMs. I write some text in L2 or L3 as best as I can, and then prompt an LLM to fix the grammar but not change anything else. Often it will also explain if I'm getting the context right.

That being said, having it translate to a language one doesn't speak remains a gamble, you never know it's correct so I'm not sure if I'd dare use it professionally. Recently I was corrected by a marketing guy that is native in yet another language because I used a ChatGPT translation for an error message. Apparently it didn't sound right.

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#68

Post by n2d4 »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #6

I am very tired of seeing every random person's speculation (framed as real insight) on what's going to happen as they try to signify that they are super involved in AI and super on top of it and therefore still worthy of value and importance in the economy.

I think I'm the opposite! The key is to ignore any language that sounds too determined and treat it as an opinion piece on what could happen. There's no way of knowing what will, but I find the theories very interesting.

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#69

Post by CuriouslyC »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #28
tracerbulletx wrote: post #6

I am very tired of seeing every random person's speculation (framed as real insight) on what's going to happen as they try to signify that they are super involved in AI and super on top of it and therefore still worthy of value and importance in the economy.

Yeah if you actually work in AI you usually can’t say much at all about what’s going on.

Sadly this is more a statement about human irrationality than any of the technology involved.

Re: AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected

#70

Post by re-thc »

SecretDreams wrote: post #32
xXSLAYERXx wrote: post #10

Senior dev here 15 years experience just turned 50 have family blah blah. I've been contracting for the last two years. The org is just starting to use Claude. I've been delegating - well copy pasting - into chatgpt which has to be the laziest way to leverage AI. I've been so successful (meaning haven't had to do anything really except argue with chatgpt when it goes off on some tangent) with this approach that I can…

> I swear when this contract is over I'm opening a mobile food cart. This is the way. I think I'd like to be a barista or deliver the mail once all the jobs are gone.

> I think I'd like to be a barista or deliver the mail once all the jobs are gone.

Those are even easier to automate or have already been most of the way.

Post reply on HN