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Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

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Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#821

Post by lordofgibbons »

ArnoVW wrote: post #283
lordofgibbons wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do you need programmers to utilize the AI? The whole point of AI is that it doesn't need an "operator". I'm not talking about GH Copilot or some autocomplete IDE feature, I'm talking about fully autonomous agents 2-3 years in the future. Just look at the insane rate of progress in the past 2 years. The next two years will be even faster if the past few months are anything to go by.

For the same reason that we still have a finance and legal department even if you can outsource them, and for the same reason that non technical CTO’s don’t exist. You can outsource the execution of a task but only if you know how to formulate your requirements and analyze the situation.

> You can outsource the execution of a task but only if you know how to formulate your requirements and analyze the situation.

What fundamental limitation in AI makes you believe reasoning agents in 2 years won't be able to do this?

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#822

Post by lordofgibbons »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #300
lordofgibbons wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do you need programmers to utilize the AI? The whole point of AI is that it doesn't need an "operator". I'm not talking about GH Copilot or some autocomplete IDE feature, I'm talking about fully autonomous agents 2-3 years in the future. Just look at the insane rate of progress in the past 2 years. The next two years will be even faster if the past few months are anything to go by.

Because programmers know the right questions to ask AIs have been shown to have confirmation bias depending on what you ask them. They won't question your assumptions on non-obvious subjects. Like "why should this application be written in Python and not C++". You could ask it the opposite, and it will provide ample justification for either position.

> Because programmers know the right questions to ask

What fundamental limitation in AI makes you believe reasoning agents won't be able to gather requirements, ask clarifying questions, and make decisions in 2 years?

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#823

Post by icepat »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #733
falcor84 wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not at all, it's absolutely cool to argue against specific decisions he made, but I just wanted to reject this attempt at sarcasm about his overall decision-making: >Zuckerberg, as always, is well known for making excellent business decisions that lead to greater sector buy in.

If we're being honest here. A lot of the current technocrats made one or two successful products or acquisitions, and more or less relied on those alone to power everything else. And they weren't necessarily the best, they were simple first. Everything else is incredibly hit or miss, so I wouldn't call them visionaries. Apple was almost the one exception, but the post Jobs era definitely had that cultural branding st…

Yes, this is exactly why I think my comment was fair. Meta itself is where it is because it was first and got initial traction. Now it has an effective level of vendor lock-in. It's the equivalent of saying someone who won at slots on their first round is an expert gambler because they got a multi-million dollar payout, even if they've then subsequently lost every other turn on the machine.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#824

Post by jajko »

lnrd wrote: post #93
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…

Is there data about this or is just your perception? Because my perception would be different, for example in my country countless bank branches closed and a lot of banking jobs do not exist anymore thanks to widespread home-banking usage (which I also know differs from country to country). This is also from the tales of people that had careers in banking and now tell how less banking jobs there are compared to when…

Bank branches for physical contact decreased everywhere, Covid was the last nail in the coffin for many. In the meantime, backoffice jobs rose or even exploded. More and more complex IT, way more regulations from everywhere.

Not sure how overall numbers look like, I would expect slight decrease overall, but for IT definitely grew. Those are really not same type of jobs, although in minds of public are all 'bankers', since all are bank employees.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#825

Post by smeeger »

circular argument. literally “heres why you will regret it: 1) you will regret it” lol. nobody will regret firing their high-salary programmer within a year or two. its over. what happened to all the enthusiasm for the idea that technology doesnt steal jobs, it just creates new ones?!

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#826

Post by ungreased0675 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #347
thechao wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right; I can see it in the accelerating growth curve of my good Junior devs; I see grandOP's vision in my bad Junior devs. Optimistically, I think this gives more jr devs more runway to advance deeper into more sophisticated tech stacks. I think we're gonna need more SW devs, not fewer, as these tools get better: things that were previously impossible will be possible.

> more sophisticated tech stacks Please don't do this, pick more boring tech stacks https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43012862 instead. "Sophisticated" tech stacks are a huge waste, so please save the sophisticated stuff for the 0.1% of the time where you actually need it.

An edge case in startups is something that provides a competitive advantage. When you run a startup, you have to do something different from the way everyone else does, or you’ll get the same results everyone else does. My theory is that some part of a startup’s operations should be cutting edge. HR processes, programming stack, sales cycle, something.

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#827

Post by smeeger »

awkward wrote: post #113
bigfatkitten wrote: post #19

For each programmer who actually spends their time on complex design work or fixing difficult bugs, there are many more doing what amounts to clerical work. Adding a new form here, fiddling with a layout there. It is the latter class who are in real danger.

The new form and layout are what the business wants and can easily articulate. What they need is people who understand whether the new form needs to both be stored in the local postgres system or if it should trigger a Kafka event to notify other parts of the business. The AI only world is still one where the form and layout get done, but what happens to that data afterward?

the AI will happily do all that for you…

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#828

Post by smeeger »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #543
sunami-ai wrote: post #506

I agree with the statement in the title. Using AI to write code does two things: 1. Everything seems to go faster at first until you have to debug it because the AI can't seem to be able to fix the issue... It's hard enough to debug code you wrote yourself. However, if you work with code written by others (team environment) then maybe you're used to this, but not being able to quickly debug code you're responsible fo…

Essentially: people are vastly overestimating AI ability and vastly underestimating HI ability. Humans are supremely adaptable. That's what our defining attribute as a species is. As a group we can adapt to more or less any reality we find ourselves in. People with good minds will use whatever tools they have to enhance their natural abilities. People with less good minds will use whatever tools they have to cover up…

you are objectively wrong because you dismiss out of hand the possibility that AI will not continue to improve. the heuristics are against you and you have no reasoning or evidence behind your assertion that we have already hit the ceiling. youre arrogant. just confront it already

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#829

Post by smeeger »

qoez wrote: post #130

Some companies will try to fire as many programmers as possible and will end up struggling bc they have no moats against other companies with access to the same AI, or will hit some kind of AI saturation usefulness threshold. Other companies will figure out a smart hybrid to utilize existing talent and those are probably the ones that will thrive among the competition.

in a world where human labor is worthless, moats and other nonsense will be the last of anyones worries. you can take that to the bank whipper snapper

Re: Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

#830

Post by smeeger »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #300
lordofgibbons wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do you need programmers to utilize the AI? The whole point of AI is that it doesn't need an "operator". I'm not talking about GH Copilot or some autocomplete IDE feature, I'm talking about fully autonomous agents 2-3 years in the future. Just look at the insane rate of progress in the past 2 years. The next two years will be even faster if the past few months are anything to go by.

Because programmers know the right questions to ask AIs have been shown to have confirmation bias depending on what you ask them. They won't question your assumptions on non-obvious subjects. Like "why should this application be written in Python and not C++". You could ask it the opposite, and it will provide ample justification for either position.

i believe that this man just asked you what will happen in 2 years, with ai that is more advanced, not about today and todays limitations. this conversation would seem unimaginable to someone just five years ago. you are refusing to confront whats right in front of you
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