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Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, show us the website and the source code - every time I read statement like this, there is no proof.

No, you missed the memo. You're supposed to say they're toy webpages and it doesn't count as "real" programming. Simonw has plenty of examples on his blog, including full transcripts if you've honestly not seen them before though. https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-assisted-programming/ A fun one that he didn't bother to post to his blog tho - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42505772

I see no such example, just some blog full of useless posts.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

#93
post #38

i'm quite surprised by the level of skepticism in this thread. I've been developping my website + webservice + db only using cursor "composer" mode, not typing a single line of code, and i'm already with something fully functional. I am voluntarely refraining from fixing the bugs myself by digging into the code, just to see how far someone with 0 coding skill can go. And this answer is : as far as a junior / midlevel…

Please, show us the website and the source code - every time I read statement like this, there is no proof.

oh you won't need it : the code is probably horrible, the website design is vaguely Ok for an admin backend but clearly not suitable to customer facing, etc.

But the point is : it works.It is functional and handles complex realistic scenarios.

And only two years ago, this was pure fantasy. Now give the tech two more years, and see where this is going ?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

#94
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, show us the website and the source code - every time I read statement like this, there is no proof.

oh you won't need it : the code is probably horrible, the website design is vaguely Ok for an admin backend but clearly not suitable to customer facing, etc. But the point is : it works.It is functional and handles complex realistic scenarios. And only two years ago, this was pure fantasy. Now give the tech two more years, and see where this is going ?

Now for those who are curious, i'm done with my first experiment and i am planning on starting a full redesign of that project, this time providing the AI with a lot more guidance on software best practices. I'll decompose more, make it write more unit tests, etc. And make sure to keep everything in check regularly regarding code quality (still writing nothing myself though).

In fact, i'll be doing exactly what i would do with a junior/midlevel developer. Except AI work probably 100x times faster.

My first iteration of that project lasted about 3 days from start to finish, reaching a point where i left so much cruft accumulating that it couldn't refactor it properly without breaking absolutely everything in an impossible to recover manner... But before you say anything, i've personally seen the same thing happen at least 5 times in my career, with professional humans developing the code.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

#95
post #91
post #20

The point of an engineer isn't just "to write code." You pay engineers to understand the systems they work with. Code is incidental.

Coding is, and always has been, the easy part of software development

Pretty sure he knows this

Re: Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

#96
post #38

i'm quite surprised by the level of skepticism in this thread. I've been developping my website + webservice + db only using cursor "composer" mode, not typing a single line of code, and i'm already with something fully functional. I am voluntarely refraining from fixing the bugs myself by digging into the code, just to see how far someone with 0 coding skill can go. And this answer is : as far as a junior / midlevel…

I bet your code is full of exploits.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

#98

My company makes a boatload of money fixing urgent stuff companies cannot fix fast enough while losing money because it is broken. Without AI this type of thing is on the quick rise since we started end of the 90s and there is so much work we can just keep upping the hourlies and only pick the stuff we like. The last year or so, we have been finding naively generated AI code as a kind of incident multiplier. I think…

Tell me more about this !

Re: Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

#99
I think we're headed for an industry where "everybody is above average". What we think of today as work for junior/mid level engineers will be completely done by AI agents (multiple), all under the direction of a few experienced engineers.

How do we train up the next generation of software engineers if nobody is hiring newbies? This is going to be the fundamental question for the industry over the next decade. The answer, I'm afraid, is going to look something like Musk's Twitter - 80% drop in head count, only the highly motivated remain.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta's midlevel engineers

#100
post #43

It has been admitted and not even Zuckerberg is hiding it. First it was 'juniors', then 'mid-level' and it WILL especially be seniors next (as they are already expensive). There is a high certainty that there will be a significant job displacement with the introduction of these "AI Agents". Once again as predicted in other threads before [0] with increased proposals to run to the AGI scam it is after complete job dis…

What are you doing to prepare?

My thoughts are:

I might as well enjoy life now since the future me will need no savings as the age of abundance will take care of me.

I might switch careers to accelerate this future. Whatever I’m working on now isn’t that important because 5 years from now it will be done by AGI if this is brought about.

I should stake a claim in the AGI future. Own or invest in a company that will increase in value given this future.

I could start preparing by switching careers. Maybe becoming a product manager or manager that manages AGI for a business or picking a career that AGI can’t do. Maybe an electrician or doctor or plumber. But is anything safe?

Prepare for the Terminator future. Find the weakness in machines and figure out how to destroy them.

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