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Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

defragzone.substack.com

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Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#751

Post by bodegajed »

nerder92 wrote: post #155

This article is entirely built on 2 big and wrong assumptions: 1. AI code ability will be the same as is today 2. Companies will replace people for AI en masse at a given moment in time Of course both these assumptions are wrong, the quality of code produced by AI will improve dramatically as model evolves. And is not even just the model itself. The tooling, the Agentic capabilities and workflow will entirely change…

> Quality of code produced by AI will improve dramatically as model evolves.

Where are your facts? What is your basis on these future prediction? Sure small code snippets have already improved since gpt2. What about larger applications where layers and layers of abstractions coming from private company sensitive data?

> At the end of the day product is just one area of company development, build the complete e2e ultimate solution with 0 distribution or marketing will not help.

this sounds like PR garbage to me why use "e2e ultimate solution" provide technical details so we can verify what you're saying is true

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#752

Post by CM30 »

Generally I agree with the article, and I do feel that trying to replace everyone with AI will backfire in various ways. Lots of big companes will find that out the hard way, especially in the tech industry and other more regulated fields like medicine and finance.

But at the same time, it's also worth noting that (somewhat sadly) there are plenty of jobs and companies where an AI created solution could be just what they need, even at this stage in its development. Lots of companies who need sites too complex for Squarespace but too simple for a fully engineered custom solution. The kind who'd use WordPress plugins or small agencies to build out simple CRUD systems.

AI could absolutely annihilate that sort of work there and then. If you need a simple PHP or React based system and you don't need anything remotely complex functionality wise, even something like ChatGPT can build it out in about 20 minutes without many extra fixes needed.

Of course, that leads to the problems mentioned in the article again, since a lot of people get into programming/engineering through those sorts of companies and roles. AI may not make the folks at Alphabet or Meta obsolete at the moment (or even be a good fit for the kind of work many large tech companies do), but it could replace whole teams at small and medium sized organisations that don't need anything complex.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#753

Post by megablast »

I have been able to program stuff using AI that I could not do before. I never managed 3d before, but can now do advanced 3d stuff. I wrote an Apple watch application in a few hours instead of the week it took me before, in swift a language I have never used before.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#754

Post by yodsanklai »

csmpltn wrote: post #214
dham wrote: post #144

There's such a huge disconnect between people reading headlines and developers who are actually trying to use AI day to day in good faith. We know what it is good at and what it's not. It's incredibly far away from doing any significant change in a mature codebase. In fact I've become so bearish on the technology trying to use it for this, I'm thinking there's going to have to be some other breakthrough or something…

I think that LLMs are only going to make people with real tech/programming skills much more in demand, as younger programmers skip straight into prompt engineering and never develop themselves technically beyond the bare minimum needed to glue things together. The gap between people with deep, hands-on experience that understand how a computer works and prompt engineers will become so insanely deep. Somebody needs to…

> as younger programmers skip straight into prompt engineering and never develop themselves technically beyond the bare minimum needed to glue things together.

I'm not worried about that at all. Many young people are passionate, eager to learn and build things. They won't become suddenly dumb and lazy because they have this extra tool available to them. I think it's the opposite. They'll be better than their seniors because they'll have AI help them improving and learn faster.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#755

Post by r33b33 »

Real talk.

We are a small theme of people running an online game app.

We use XCode swift language and python for server.

We need to develop a website where this game can be played live and implement many features.

Current AIs are smart. There is DeepSeek R-1.

Has anyone actually figured out how to implement this in coding environment and get it to actually CORRECTLY implement the tickets and features without messing everything up?

How can it know if the feature actually works in the game? It can't test it, right?

How can it take into account the ENTIRE database of code with folders and directories and files and all that stuff + resources uploaded?

I don't think even DeepSeek can do that.

Which tool is best as of now?

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#756

Post by tete »

In my experience the majority of people believing in AI replacing people are people who are horrible in their jobs and who mostly BS their way through, which is the major skill that LLMs are really good at: Hallucinating with confidence.

Can be devs, can be managers, can be the board.

And hey, if LLMs and other "AI" ever do a better job at something valuable, I think that has the potential to lead to a bright future.

Currently the biggest risk is someone using LLMs to do something actually critical.

Also waiting for the first contract negotiations done with AI summaries to blow up into someone's face.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#757

Post by bobthepanda »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #663
RicoElectrico wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OsmAnd doesn't use traffic data. You can enable traffic map layers by feeding a reverse-engineered URL, though.

I'm not talking about use of traffic data. In the abstract, assuming you are the only person in the world who owns a car, that route would be a very bad recommendation. Safety concerns would be lower, but still, there's no reason you'd ever do that.

safety concerns would probably actually be higher since the most dangerous places on roads are areas where traffic crosses and conflicts (the road you cross to get from the offramp to onramp)

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#758

Post by aucisson_masque »

csmpltn wrote: post #214
dham wrote: post #144

There's such a huge disconnect between people reading headlines and developers who are actually trying to use AI day to day in good faith. We know what it is good at and what it's not. It's incredibly far away from doing any significant change in a mature codebase. In fact I've become so bearish on the technology trying to use it for this, I'm thinking there's going to have to be some other breakthrough or something…

I think that LLMs are only going to make people with real tech/programming skills much more in demand, as younger programmers skip straight into prompt engineering and never develop themselves technically beyond the bare minimum needed to glue things together. The gap between people with deep, hands-on experience that understand how a computer works and prompt engineers will become so insanely deep. Somebody needs to…

Governor Gavin Newsom proposed to use AI agents to manage the California budget.

Using ai to write critical code doesn't seem far stretched to me.

Doing it right now would be suicidal of course, but in a few years when ai is even better ? It sure is coming.

We're already speaking seriously about ai surgeon, we are already using ai to do radiography doctors job and found it to be more reliable.

Some job are really at risk in the near future, that's obvious.

I'm no developer so I got no bias towards it.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#759

Post by aucisson_masque »

zahlman wrote: post #702
ahi wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps has some strange feedback loops. I frequently drive across the Bay Bridge to Delaware beaches. There are 2 or 3 roughly equal routes with everyone going to the same destination. Google will find a "shorter" route every 5 minutes. Naturally, Maps is smart enough to detect traffic, but not smart enough to equally distribute users to prevent it. It creates a traffic jam on route A, then tells all the users t…

It hadn't even occurred to me that there are places where enough people are using Google Maps while driving to cause significant impact on traffic patterns. Being car-free (and smartphone-free) really gives a different perspective.

Are you Theodore Kaczynski ghost? :)

Seriously what job you do that allows you to not have a smartphone ?

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#760

Post by bodegajed »

anothermathbozo wrote: post #398
high_na_euv wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of course both these assumptions are wrong, the quality of code produced by AI will improve dramatically as model evolves. How are you so sure?

No one has certainty here. It’s an emergent technology and no one knows for certain how far it can be pushed. It’s reasonable that people explore contingencies where the technology does improve to a point of driving changes in the labor market.

Theranos made bold claims too according to wikipedia Theranos claimed they devised diagnostic using blood tests that required very small amounts of blood. Then their PR machine made them raise $9 billion.
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