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Devin: AI Software Engineer

cognition-labs.com

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Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#91

Post by swatcoder »

cyrialize wrote: post #70
swatcoder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The printing press replaced the need for scribes but introduced the need for typesetters. Talented scribes did cool things with illustrations and flourishes that were lost in the transition, but ultimately spent quite a lot of their time stroking the letter "e" or "i" or whatever. Meanwhile, typesetters found themselves in a whole new creative domain which was a different one than the scribes had been working in whil…

I understand where you are coming from, but I think using the impact of the printing press to help predict the future of careers and AI is flawed. I think AI is hard to compare against the past. A printing press replaced some jobs, but AI could replace way more jobs. Maybe it is like the printing press, but without typesetters.

That's fine, but once one assumes the impact of this technology is wholly without precedent then they're left speculating about a future informed only by their own imagination.

They'll always be able to re-affirm their own preconceptions (fears) because its the "just so" fantasy future of their own making.

I don't see the point of coming to HN to trade those invented stories, as people here traditionally push to stay within the engineer's realm of how real things work, how they fit into the history of innovation, and what people might practically build with those things based on how they work.

There are countless speculative fiction communities better suited to idle "yeah, but what if the sky was purple tomorrow?" discussions.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#92

Post by molticrystal »

mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

From the article:

>Devin correctly resolves 13.86%* of the issues end-to-end... previous state-of-the-art of 1.96%."

While the cliff everybody will be shoved off is coming closer, it still seems engineers have plenty of room to do their job. Whether the next shove will come in months or years it is still early to tell.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#93

Post by ardaoweo »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #67

Humans seek work that provides satisfaction and meaning in their life. For every technological advancement, artisans are the first to be made obsolete. Sure we have landfills full of unworn textiles, the market says its good, but overall, we keep destroying what allows humans to seek meaning. Our governments and society have made it clear, if you don't produce value, you don't deserve dignity. We have outsourced art…

If we got universal basic income, people could do whatever they want. I for one would be content spending my time gardening and trekking in the nature. I despise office work and do it only for money.

It's forcing the rich to give us UBI that is the problem.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#94

Post by steve_adams_86 »

lacoolj wrote: post #39

This is just nice packaging on top of current models. Very nicely done but still not a giant leap forward from what is already here

I'm not suggesting great work didn't go into this, but I was able to build a very crude version of this on GPT 3.5. It was evident then that the real power of these models isn't in chat, but in a sandboxed environment where they can recursively iterate on solutions and feedback from their sandboxed environment. I was able to feed mine small applications with bugs and have it comb through and find the bugs, write and apply solutions, write tests for solutions, etc.

Adding features was too hard to implement in my limited spare time, but was clearly possible. I would have needed some form of test running for UIs or CLIs, and I wasn't prepared to go that deep on a project I wasn't going to get much out of.

It was crude and overly specific to what I was trying to get it to do, but it worked well enough to convince me that someone smarter than me could make a capable and truly useful version of it that could actually impact the industry meaningfully.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#95

Post by ewild »

swatcoder wrote: post #20
mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

The printing press replaced the need for scribes but introduced the need for typesetters. Talented scribes did cool things with illustrations and flourishes that were lost in the transition, but ultimately spent quite a lot of their time stroking the letter "e" or "i" or whatever. Meanwhile, typesetters found themselves in a whole new creative domain which was a different one than the scribes had been working in whil…

eventually we will reach the limits of what can be discovered with physics. the same applies here. eventually the limit of what a human can improve on through a job will be done. is this that point? idk but there will be one time that "new jobs" arent made

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#96

Post by CipherThrowaway »

siva7 wrote: post #17
mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

I would have dismissed this thought a year ago but seeing how fast openai is moving, in 5 years those ai assistants will be what nowadays human junior/intermediate devs are.

If this is the case, it would be more inline with how other complex professions work.

Entry level positions in fields like medicine, law, the sciences, architecture, engineering etc can require years of intensive training before you're skilled enough to take on the role even at entry level.

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#98

Post by CipherThrowaway »

optimalsolver wrote: post #16
mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

>can focus on more interesting problems Kind of like how art was supposed to be what humans would be doing while AI does the jobs we don't want, but looks like that will be the first thing to fall to the machines, while humans fight for carpet installation and plumbing jobs (for a while).

AI still can't do art. Tacky AI generated imagery is mid-2020s clip art, already recognizable to consumers and signalling negative brand associations like "cheap", "scam", "low quality."

Re: Devin: AI Software Engineer

#99

Post by petsfed »

andrewmutz wrote: post #36
mattlondon wrote: post #8

There is no way this is going to make it so that "engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals." Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. I guess this is the future. We've coded ourselves out of a job. People are smiling an…

> Instead it will mean that bosses can fire 75-90% of the (very expensive) engineers, with the ones who remain left to prompt the AI and clean up any mistakes/misunderstandings. We continually hear anxiety about technology leading to mass unemployment and it keeps not happening. Instead, workers tend to have higher productivity, which drives higher wages. Technological advancements transformed agriculture from being…

...for instance, by a larger shift towards service-sector jobs (e.g. janitorial work, dining and entertainment, and retail sales).

It is the case that productivity has grown with automation, but at the same time, median wages have stagnated, as the number of high-paying jobs have steadily shrank. Considering inflation, median income has been stagnant since about 1965. But productivity is at an all time high. But all the wealth that that generates is not going out into the world, its being concentrated.

I'm in automation with physical machines, and there's a part of me that sincerely hopes that the continuing automation of various jobs leads to a golden age where society's basic needs are always met by robots, and we're free to pursue our passions. But I'm honestly not optimistic that that will happen without a series of (likely bloody) revolutions and counter-revolutions until either the species is extinguished or our social system finally achieves a new equilibrium.AI can definitely be understood as an invasive species or a natural disaster in terms of the impact it has to our social ecosystem.

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