4 ms·

I'm a person (software engineer) who knows some ML and I tell this to my coworkers when they express similar sentiments: If you're worried about ML taking your

I'm a person (software engineer) who knows some ML and I tell this to my coworkers when they express similar sentiments: If you're worried about ML taking your job then you're not thinking straight. If the world has automated to the degree where programmers are non longer needed in 3 or 10 years then you will definitely have other things to worry about. Truckers, farmers, taxis, cops, and construction crews will likely all be automated before programmers are, and when that happens it will cause a huge global crisis and leave millions unemployed. Programmers will be sometime later when we figure out general AI. Alternative scenario: loss of jobs to automation and inadequate social safety net cause social unrest and communist revolution. We've seen this kind of thing before. In short: if you're looking at Hacker News then doing ML is likely irrelevant.

ashark 9y ago
It's more like concern that not having those skills (or something comparably advanced, but also with no immediate use in my work or life) will force me to slide down, rather than up, if/when competition from overseas finally hollows out the middle of the US developer market—though I'm not sure why this hasn't already happened, so maybe I'm wrong to worry about that at all. Not concern that ML programs will start writing other programs well enough to be a direct threat.
- hasbroslasher 9y ago
  Overseas competition? I'm not sure what you're on about now - it's currently the hardest[1] time in history to get an H1-B with Cheeto man in the White House. Also I think that USA-born and educated developers are still significantly more sought after because of language barriers. If you've tried to get a job in tech recently you'll notice that... it's pretty damn easy. Honestly it sounds like you're paranoid about your job security and externalizing it. "It's ML, no it's foreigners, no it's the aliens!" I'm a programmer, not a psychologist, though, so don't take my word for it. You can have a look at the sklearn docs though, good place to start on your ML quest. http://scikit-learn.org/stable/ http://scikit-learn.org/stable/ [1] Not intended to be a factual claim, just a point about the current political climate
  - ashark 9y ago
    H1B? No I don't care about that. I just think it's a bit concerning that the only things keeping this cornucopia full are the circumstances of a language barrier that's only relevant because foreign software companies largely aren't yet competitive with those in the US, and that no-one's fully cracked making remote work a thing on a large scale. That's a tissue-paper thin barrier protecting the wages of 95+% of the people employed as software developers in the US who aren't doing anything remarkable. My job security's fine as long as all these dumb "Facebook for Dogs", mid-sized software company doing nothing all that amazing (so: 99% of mid sized software companies), and "Non-software-company software division" jobs that comprise a giant percentage (almost certainly the vast majority) of US development jobs remain in the US (or other expensive OECD states). I'm just not certain why they would remain here, in the medium-term. It's not paranoia so much as "gee, why the hell am I paid so much?" The reasons seem pretty weak, which... isn't comforting. It's not like I'm curled up shaking in the corner over it, though.
    - hasbroslasher 9y ago
      That last paragraph is funny as hell, and I get what you're saying. I guess I'm just more pessimistic about anyone solving the problems of the language barrier and remote work soon - as with ML, once we truly have global, language-agnostic communication and physicality is irrelevant the world will be a very different place. I guess my overarching point here is that global economics is one of the more dizzyingly complex things you can choose to worry about so I tend not to.
nilkn 9y ago
My understanding is that the anxiety isn't about a fear of programming being automated in the near future, but rather about ML growing into a required, essential skill for a software developer in the next few years.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  > My understanding is that the anxiety isn't about a fear of programming being automated in the near future, but rather about ML growing into a required, essential skill for a software developer in the next few years. Let's say you were an automobile assembly line worker in 1965, and you were hearing about robots taking over your job at some point. What would you do? That is, what would be the best thing you could do? If you answer "Get an education in something that robots aren't doing, and try to get out of this career path" - go to the front of the line. So - if you are a software developer - and worried that sometime in the future (I'd argue that "sometime" will soon mean "in 5 years, maybe less" - just as you note), ML is "rowing into a required, essential skill for a software developer" - what would you do? Sit back, throw your hands up, and hope? Or maybe get that education now on how ML works, how to use it, learning the hard math, etc? Guess which route I have taken? Perhaps others should as well, if they want to continue in their careers...
  - hasbroslasher 9y ago
    If robots can design websites in 5 years, it won't be much longer til they can devise statistical ML schemes. Also, if you don't have a background in math, you'll just be finishing your studies of math/CS after 5 years, for reference. Projects like TPOT and DataRobot are already showing a huge amount of promise for automating the tedious/time consuming parts of ML. But this doesn't mean they'll get good at the hard part any time soon. I'd say your time/energy is better spent lobbying governments for socialist reform than learning ML at this point so we can avoid the worst case scenario(s).

ashark 9y ago

It's more like concern that not having those skills (or something comparably advanced, but also with no immediate use in my work or life) will force me to slide down, rather than up, if/when competition from overseas finally hollows out the middle of the US developer market—though I'm not sure why this hasn't already happened, so maybe I'm wrong to worry about that at all. Not concern that ML programs will start writing other programs well enough to be a direct threat.

hasbroslasher 9y ago
Overseas competition? I'm not sure what you're on about now - it's currently the hardest[1] time in history to get an H1-B with Cheeto man in the White House. Also I think that USA-born and educated developers are still significantly more sought after because of language barriers. If you've tried to get a job in tech recently you'll notice that... it's pretty damn easy. Honestly it sounds like you're paranoid about your job security and externalizing it. "It's ML, no it's foreigners, no it's the aliens!" I'm a programmer, not a psychologist, though, so don't take my word for it. You can have a look at the sklearn docs though, good place to start on your ML quest. http://scikit-learn.org/stable/ http://scikit-learn.org/stable/ [1] Not intended to be a factual claim, just a point about the current political climate
- ashark 9y ago
  H1B? No I don't care about that. I just think it's a bit concerning that the only things keeping this cornucopia full are the circumstances of a language barrier that's only relevant because foreign software companies largely aren't yet competitive with those in the US, and that no-one's fully cracked making remote work a thing on a large scale. That's a tissue-paper thin barrier protecting the wages of 95+% of the people employed as software developers in the US who aren't doing anything remarkable. My job security's fine as long as all these dumb "Facebook for Dogs", mid-sized software company doing nothing all that amazing (so: 99% of mid sized software companies), and "Non-software-company software division" jobs that comprise a giant percentage (almost certainly the vast majority) of US development jobs remain in the US (or other expensive OECD states). I'm just not certain why they would remain here, in the medium-term. It's not paranoia so much as "gee, why the hell am I paid so much?" The reasons seem pretty weak, which... isn't comforting. It's not like I'm curled up shaking in the corner over it, though.
  - hasbroslasher 9y ago
    That last paragraph is funny as hell, and I get what you're saying. I guess I'm just more pessimistic about anyone solving the problems of the language barrier and remote work soon - as with ML, once we truly have global, language-agnostic communication and physicality is irrelevant the world will be a very different place. I guess my overarching point here is that global economics is one of the more dizzyingly complex things you can choose to worry about so I tend not to.

nilkn 9y ago

My understanding is that the anxiety isn't about a fear of programming being automated in the near future, but rather about ML growing into a required, essential skill for a software developer in the next few years.

cr0sh 9y ago
> My understanding is that the anxiety isn't about a fear of programming being automated in the near future, but rather about ML growing into a required, essential skill for a software developer in the next few years. Let's say you were an automobile assembly line worker in 1965, and you were hearing about robots taking over your job at some point. What would you do? That is, what would be the best thing you could do? If you answer "Get an education in something that robots aren't doing, and try to get out of this career path" - go to the front of the line. So - if you are a software developer - and worried that sometime in the future (I'd argue that "sometime" will soon mean "in 5 years, maybe less" - just as you note), ML is "rowing into a required, essential skill for a software developer" - what would you do? Sit back, throw your hands up, and hope? Or maybe get that education now on how ML works, how to use it, learning the hard math, etc? Guess which route I have taken? Perhaps others should as well, if they want to continue in their careers...
- hasbroslasher 9y ago
  If robots can design websites in 5 years, it won't be much longer til they can devise statistical ML schemes. Also, if you don't have a background in math, you'll just be finishing your studies of math/CS after 5 years, for reference. Projects like TPOT and DataRobot are already showing a huge amount of promise for automating the tedious/time consuming parts of ML. But this doesn't mean they'll get good at the hard part any time soon. I'd say your time/energy is better spent lobbying governments for socialist reform than learning ML at this point so we can avoid the worst case scenario(s).