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Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

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Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#801

Post by bossyTeacher »

throw234234234 wrote: post #799
bossyTeacher wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Stop people entering while they are young and can pivot into something with better returns. You mean stopping CS grads, who spend money and years on their degree from pursuing a career in their field? A better move would be to stop allowing people to graduate in CS. Not that I think that any of the above should actually be done though.

> A better move would be to stop allowing people to graduate in CS. Its a free market if you are the one paying for it solely. If you are willing to pay for the degree then the demand is there for them to sell you the product. Buyer beware sadly. Its a question of what you see the purpose of the course is - to prep people for the job market or to teach knowledge? If it is the former to you then yes they should at lea…

I agree with your points.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#802

Post by Anamon »

Danox wrote: post #369
malfist wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been told the past four years that AI is coming for my job. And thats just not true. Its no closer to that than it was 4 years ago.

It is the lament of every generation of humans to think that they are the pinnacle of everything that has come before, we are just at the start of the so-called AI era, many very smart people coming up still haven’t really got their hands on all of the material available from a hardware and software standpoint. We are still at the early stages. I am very optimistic. I just wish I was younger to take advantage like Ju…

We're not at the early stages. The LLM hype started almost for years ago! And for the past two or three years, progress has plateaued (if not regressed) and the economics, which still have to be figured out, point to it becoming an order of magnitude more expensive at least, compared to this aggressive marketing and VC phase.

I've been told for three years that it's the early days, and everything completely changes every few months, and these are the worst the tools will ever be. Meanwhile, I see very little technical progress, zero return on investment anywhere, negative infinity profitability on the side of the providers, and a fast growing realisation among the masses on all the myriad tasks they are systemically unsuitable for.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#803

Post by Anamon »

pickleRick243 wrote: post #779
youknownothing wrote: post #641

People who think that "software engineering" and "writing code" are the same thing will indeed be out of a job. People who understand the difference will continue to thrive. Thinking that software engineers can be replaced by AI is like thinking that mathematicians can be replaced by calculators.

This viewpoint is curdling rapidly. The definition of "reasoning" and "intelligence" will be debated for ages by philosophers and cognitive scientists, but whatever type of logical/critical thinking is going on in the heads of software engineers and mathematicians, frontier LLMs can now emulate to a very high degree. For mathematics in particular, examples like the following will become common place: https://gowers.w…

Emulating being the key word here. Putting words in a similar order as a critical thinker would, isn't the same as critical thinking. Have you looked at the output of "reasoning" models? It's funny, for sure, but not impressive or threatening. It exposes the models for the statistical word generators they are.

Add the fact that they totally suck at tasks outside of those spanned by the training data. I know there's a vision of the future where humans are all gig workers generating specialised training data for LLMs, but it doesn't sound much more plausible to me than a future where intellectual progress forever stops at the 2022 level, because everything will be done by LLMs and that's when anything new stopped being thought of.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#804

Post by jazzpush2 »

ReptileMan wrote: post #94
ryeights wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/software engineer/secretary/ s/creating software/typing correspondence/ In a world where software programming/architecting is solved by AI, value will accrue to people with expertise in other domains (who have now been granted the power of 1000 expert developers), not the people whose skillsets have been made redundant by better, faster and cheaper AI tools.

It could go either way. Don't forget that LLMs also have expertise in the other domains. Who would do better - the chemist with vibe coded app or the developer with vibe coded chemistry?

Vibe-coded chemistry is absolute garbage right now. The former would do magnitudes better.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#805

Post by punk-salt »

JohnMakin wrote: post #162

> The career of a pro athlete has a maximum lifespan of around fifteen years. You have the opportunity to make a lot of money until around your mid-thirties, This sounds ageist - I'm around 40 and feel I am at my mental peak, compared to even my mid 20's. This isn't a good analogy at all, the brain doesn't "wear out" like a professional athletes' body does, it just changes its structure. The brain is a remarkable org…

It's about increasingly being unable to "keep up", as time goes on, not about aging per se.

In the athlete analogy it's the body that's slowing down. In the AI-powered development world, it's the development that's speeding up.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#806

Post by [deleted] »

tavavex wrote: post #798
keybored wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have a problem with people being very negative and cynical. I have a problem with people being very negative and cynical and also defeatist. The things that I alluded to were examples of fighting back. Not just dreading the hypothetical future. That I brought up things that cannot be automated right now was to demonstrate that we won’t go from the status quo—which is after all not a white collar automation wi…

> I have a problem with people being very negative and cynical and also defeatist. Why? Does it honestly seem like there's a serious possibility that this will turn out well, that there's something people will do to stop it? Can you name a time in recent history when something like this had happened and the crisis was averted? I'm not saying I've given up, but I can't influence the situation and, with what has happen…

[deleted]

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#807

Post by keybored »

tavavex wrote: post #798
keybored wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have a problem with people being very negative and cynical. I have a problem with people being very negative and cynical and also defeatist. The things that I alluded to were examples of fighting back. Not just dreading the hypothetical future. That I brought up things that cannot be automated right now was to demonstrate that we won’t go from the status quo—which is after all not a white collar automation wi…

> I have a problem with people being very negative and cynical and also defeatist. Why? Does it honestly seem like there's a serious possibility that this will turn out well, that there's something people will do to stop it? Can you name a time in recent history when something like this had happened and the crisis was averted? I'm not saying I've given up, but I can't influence the situation and, with what has happen…

I’m sorry. I thought that I alluded to it but I didn’t.

The fact that I have a 40-hour workweek is because Labor (not any political party) fought for it. The Weekend also. And getting enough income to be “middle class” rather than proletarian.

What would the modern Westerner say if they uniformly had to work 12-hour days? Probably something about Orwell’s boot stomping on a face forever and then getting back to work.

Also America’s 1950’s middle class boom.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#808

Post by keybored »

keybored wrote: post #807
tavavex wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a problem with people being very negative and cynical and also defeatist. Why? Does it honestly seem like there's a serious possibility that this will turn out well, that there's something people will do to stop it? Can you name a time in recent history when something like this had happened and the crisis was averted? I'm not saying I've given up, but I can't influence the situation and, with what has happen…

I’m sorry. I thought that I alluded to it but I didn’t. The fact that I have a 40-hour workweek is because Labor (not any political party) fought for it. The Weekend also. And getting enough income to be “middle class” rather than proletarian. What would the modern Westerner say if they uniformly had to work 12-hour days? Probably something about Orwell’s boot stomping on a face forever and then getting back to work.…

And this part.

> LLMs are brains in a vat and therefore cannot by themselves do any tasks that goes beyond simulating keyboard & mouse in front of a computer screen.

Meant to imply that (a bit obtuse writing style?) even if LLMs cHaNge evEryThing for white collar work... you still need embodiment in order to do many “human” jobs. Thus even with the maximalist take-our-jobs outlook, labor itself will not be wiped out in one fell swoop. Which means that those who are left can fight back. Because they have their labor as leverage.

I didn’t feel like spelling that out because replying to two-sentence defeatism with multiple paragraphs is a lot of work.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#809

Post by cindyllm »

keybored wrote: post #808
keybored wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry. I thought that I alluded to it but I didn’t. The fact that I have a 40-hour workweek is because Labor (not any political party) fought for it. The Weekend also. And getting enough income to be “middle class” rather than proletarian. What would the modern Westerner say if they uniformly had to work 12-hour days? Probably something about Orwell’s boot stomping on a face forever and then getting back to work.…

And this part. > LLMs are brains in a vat and therefore cannot by themselves do any tasks that goes beyond simulating keyboard & mouse in front of a computer screen. Meant to imply that (a bit obtuse writing style?) even if LLMs cHaNge evEryThing for white collar work... you still need embodiment in order to do many “human” jobs. Thus even with the maximalist take-our-jobs outlook, labor itself will not be wiped out…

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