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His argument seems to be that advances in AI will mean that software development itself is soon automated away, in which case a CS degree will be useless. Then,

by majos 9y ago

His argument seems to be that advances in AI will mean that software development itself is soon automated away, in which case a CS degree will be useless. Then, he advocates studying philosophy because this future will need "big picture" thinkers. I don't know how much substance there is to discuss here. It pretty much hinges on how you think AI will develop over the coming decades. I am skeptical that software development will be automated away anytime soon, especially since the actual writing of code is just one part of the job. I recall an Economist article several years back arguing that jobs are less automatable the more varied they are. For this reason custodians should be among the last to go, the logic being that a given custodian does so many different maintenance tasks that it would be impractical for a bot to replace them. Software development seems similar. You're constantly pivoting between different and shifting problems. Most of the impressive AI demonstrations like image recognition or playing Go are really about getting good at a single well-defined task. We seem to be very far away from the kind of adaptibility required to automate away developers (though perhaps the CS degree will devalue as more people pursue it). It's also unclear to me how exactly philosophy is better preparation. My own experience with academic philosophy is limited, but from what I can tell its main selling point is that it teaches you to examine things in a critical way that's very aware of the argument in question, the assumptions made, and the structure the argument sits in. My experience in math (which I pursued much more) was similar, and I imagine that most good CS programs teach similar skills? "Study philosophy" here seems like a catchy (and perhaps poor) proxy for "make sure you can reason about stuff outside a narrow programming bubble". But that's always been good advice.

function_seven 9y ago
The custodian example is a good one to look at. We tend to think of the automation as a sort of Rosie the Robot coming in and doing all the things the custodian once did. That's probably not the way the janitor's job gets automated, though. Think of self-cleaning toilets and sinks, industrial Roombas mopping and vacuuming the halls, glass-cleaning robots moving from window to window, and a trash-collecting robot emptying the bins. There's still the edge cases of course. Clogged toilets or adhesive gunk on the windows for example. But where a janitorial crew was required before, now just one janitor handles those while all the routine cleaning is automated by specialized tools.
SerLava 9y ago
>AI will mean that software development itself is soon automated away People don't seem to realize that while individual tasks are being automated away, we're not even remotely close to the ceiling on what we want programmed. The farther it goes, the more we'll want to do with it. "Oh did you get a chance to build that 3d engine this morning? I'm actually going to need it to simulate most of the physical objects San Diego today. For a thing. A report or whatever." "No, there were a couple of issues. Might have to wait til tomorrow morning."
freedomben 9y ago
> from what I can tell its main selling point is that it teaches you to examine things in a critical way that's very aware of the argument in question, the assumptions made, and the structure the argument sits in. That's definitely a big (and important) part of it. There's an unfortunate dearth of critical thinking and examination of ideas these days. I have theories as to why that is, but it's out of scope for this discussion so I will abstain. Another big part of philosophy as well is to familiarize the student with the big ideas with the hope that they can be further refined, to drive both the individual thinker forward, and hopefully humanity as a whole as well. For example, I think a hugely valuable part of philosophy training is the study of ethics. So many people (software engineers and companies included) don't really stop to think about the ethics surrounding what they are doing. This is a mistake, IMHO. I highly recommend reading about and understanding Immanuel Kant's work in this area, especially his categorical imperative and hypothetical imperative. Comparing/contrasting that with Jon Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and conducting various thought experiments makes for a good time (you can tell I'm quite the partier :-D ).
- mistermann 9y ago
  > There's an unfortunate dearth of critical thinking and examination of ideas these days. I have theories as to why that is, but it's out of scope for this discussion so I will abstain. As someone who sees the same things but has no theories, I for one would like to hear a few of yours.
  - pasabagi 9y ago
    I'm not the other poster, and this isn't my theory - but for people like Adorno or Hegel the go-to explanation for this phenomenon is basically that reasoning in our society is ends-rational. We're very good at considering ideas insofar as they relate to a goal - for instance, the geometry of transistors in relation to their performance. That's because we're a culture of employees - and in such a culture, you don't need to think about goals, just about means. This kind of thought process is pretty toxic to critical thinking and examination of ideas, since the most central elements (our goals) are almost entirely unexamined - and we don't really include their examination in our education, since we're only interested in preparing children to be good 'problem solvers', or in other words, employees.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pmoriarty 9y ago
"It's also unclear to me how exactly philosophy is better preparation. My own experience with academic philosophy is limited, but from what I can tell its main selling point is that it teaches you to examine things in a critical way that's very aware of the argument in question, the assumptions made, and the structure the argument sits in." This really depends on the kind of philosophy you study, which philosophers you're interested in, and how you engage with and react to what you learn. Asking what you get from studying philosophy is a little like asking what you get from reading books. It really depends on which books you read, how you read them, who you are, what stage of your life you're in, etc. The same books might speak differently to different people, and even to the same person at another stage in their life. The English-speaking world (and increasingly the rest of the world) is dominated by analytic philosophy, which is one lens, or perhaps a family of lenses, to view philosophy through. But there's also continental philosophy, ancient philosophy, Eastern philosophy/religion, Pragamatism, etc. Each of them brings something different to the table, and has the potential to transform the way you understand the world. Sure, philosophy can help with critical thinking skills, but to limit it to that is to ignore the content of what one actually learns and engages with. At its best, it can't be reduced to just a bundle of skills, set of knowledge, or "selling point".
kabdib 9y ago
Philosophy is great stuff, I've read my share. I've also got a few linear foot of questionable material on my bookshelf. The Carlos Castenada stuff is clearly bullshit and mostly there just as a cautionary tale. I can't make up my mind about Heidegger because I just don't understand his writing . . . he's either brilliant, or he's blowing smoke up the world's fundament; heck, maybe both. One of my cow-orkers took a bunch of philosophy in college (I think he was at Stanford, in the mid 1970s). He said his course on logic spent a lot of time on DeMorgan's theorem. I don't know about other s/w engineers, but this is something that I use practically every day, usually without even thinking about it -- I don't even remember being taught it, I just sort of figured it out one day early in my career, while I was cleaning up some badly written conditionals. Cuban's point about knowing philosophy (... which branch? who knows?) is still useful. But it's equally useful to have a wide background in other things than software, when you're writing software. I had a manager once who had a law degree and a Jesuit education, and he was formidable when it came to dealing with department politics and HR bullshit. Just about any value of X in the phrase, "I can write software and do X..." will do you well.
- yazaddaruvala 9y ago
  My computer engineering degree made us take courses in logic. DeMorgans law was definitely a part of that. It's also randomly useful in every day life to remember, "a implies b doesn't imply b implies a" and stuff like that. Lol people should hear some of the debates me and my engineering friends have sometimes. It's interjected with all of this stuff.
  - eastWestMath 9y ago
    My undergrad math department had a class on mathematical logic (set theory, Peano arithmetic) that was required to take higher level math classes. Wrote down some basic statements (conjunction, modus ponens, etc) and said if this didn’t seem fairly obvious you should reconsider your math major.
WheelsAtLarge 9y ago
Cuban may be good at marketing, but he has a very shallow grasp of tech in general. I remember his big solution to video piracy was to always release movies a super high resolution so people would have to download extremely large files. This "genius" never thought that pirates could just downsample the movie. If you go back you'll find much more of this quality "advice." I would think twice about whatever he has to say. He has lots of opinions but most are off the cuff without much thought.

by majos 9y ago

function_seven 9y ago

The custodian example is a good one to look at. We tend to think of the automation as a sort of Rosie the Robot coming in and doing all the things the custodian once did. That's probably not the way the janitor's job gets automated, though. Think of self-cleaning toilets and sinks, industrial Roombas mopping and vacuuming the halls, glass-cleaning robots moving from window to window, and a trash-collecting robot emptying the bins. There's still the edge cases of course. Clogged toilets or adhesive gunk on the windows for example. But where a janitorial crew was required before, now just one janitor handles those while all the routine cleaning is automated by specialized tools.

SerLava 9y ago

>AI will mean that software development itself is soon automated away People don't seem to realize that while individual tasks are being automated away, we're not even remotely close to the ceiling on what we want programmed. The farther it goes, the more we'll want to do with it. "Oh did you get a chance to build that 3d engine this morning? I'm actually going to need it to simulate most of the physical objects San Diego today. For a thing. A report or whatever." "No, there were a couple of issues. Might have to wait til tomorrow morning."

freedomben 9y ago

> from what I can tell its main selling point is that it teaches you to examine things in a critical way that's very aware of the argument in question, the assumptions made, and the structure the argument sits in. That's definitely a big (and important) part of it. There's an unfortunate dearth of critical thinking and examination of ideas these days. I have theories as to why that is, but it's out of scope for this discussion so I will abstain. Another big part of philosophy as well is to familiarize the student with the big ideas with the hope that they can be further refined, to drive both the individual thinker forward, and hopefully humanity as a whole as well. For example, I think a hugely valuable part of philosophy training is the study of ethics. So many people (software engineers and companies included) don't really stop to think about the ethics surrounding what they are doing. This is a mistake, IMHO. I highly recommend reading about and understanding Immanuel Kant's work in this area, especially his categorical imperative and hypothetical imperative. Comparing/contrasting that with Jon Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and conducting various thought experiments makes for a good time (you can tell I'm quite the partier :-D ).

mistermann 9y ago
> There's an unfortunate dearth of critical thinking and examination of ideas these days. I have theories as to why that is, but it's out of scope for this discussion so I will abstain. As someone who sees the same things but has no theories, I for one would like to hear a few of yours.
- pasabagi 9y ago
  I'm not the other poster, and this isn't my theory - but for people like Adorno or Hegel the go-to explanation for this phenomenon is basically that reasoning in our society is ends-rational. We're very good at considering ideas insofar as they relate to a goal - for instance, the geometry of transistors in relation to their performance. That's because we're a culture of employees - and in such a culture, you don't need to think about goals, just about means. This kind of thought process is pretty toxic to critical thinking and examination of ideas, since the most central elements (our goals) are almost entirely unexamined - and we don't really include their examination in our education, since we're only interested in preparing children to be good 'problem solvers', or in other words, employees.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pmoriarty 9y ago

"It's also unclear to me how exactly philosophy is better preparation. My own experience with academic philosophy is limited, but from what I can tell its main selling point is that it teaches you to examine things in a critical way that's very aware of the argument in question, the assumptions made, and the structure the argument sits in." This really depends on the kind of philosophy you study, which philosophers you're interested in, and how you engage with and react to what you learn. Asking what you get from studying philosophy is a little like asking what you get from reading books. It really depends on which books you read, how you read them, who you are, what stage of your life you're in, etc. The same books might speak differently to different people, and even to the same person at another stage in their life. The English-speaking world (and increasingly the rest of the world) is dominated by analytic philosophy, which is one lens, or perhaps a family of lenses, to view philosophy through. But there's also continental philosophy, ancient philosophy, Eastern philosophy/religion, Pragamatism, etc. Each of them brings something different to the table, and has the potential to transform the way you understand the world. Sure, philosophy can help with critical thinking skills, but to limit it to that is to ignore the content of what one actually learns and engages with. At its best, it can't be reduced to just a bundle of skills, set of knowledge, or "selling point".

kabdib 9y ago

Philosophy is great stuff, I've read my share. I've also got a few linear foot of questionable material on my bookshelf. The Carlos Castenada stuff is clearly bullshit and mostly there just as a cautionary tale. I can't make up my mind about Heidegger because I just don't understand his writing . . . he's either brilliant, or he's blowing smoke up the world's fundament; heck, maybe both. One of my cow-orkers took a bunch of philosophy in college (I think he was at Stanford, in the mid 1970s). He said his course on logic spent a lot of time on DeMorgan's theorem. I don't know about other s/w engineers, but this is something that I use practically every day, usually without even thinking about it -- I don't even remember being taught it, I just sort of figured it out one day early in my career, while I was cleaning up some badly written conditionals. Cuban's point about knowing philosophy (... which branch? who knows?) is still useful. But it's equally useful to have a wide background in other things than software, when you're writing software. I had a manager once who had a law degree and a Jesuit education, and he was formidable when it came to dealing with department politics and HR bullshit. Just about any value of X in the phrase, "I can write software and do X..." will do you well.

yazaddaruvala 9y ago
My computer engineering degree made us take courses in logic. DeMorgans law was definitely a part of that. It's also randomly useful in every day life to remember, "a implies b doesn't imply b implies a" and stuff like that. Lol people should hear some of the debates me and my engineering friends have sometimes. It's interjected with all of this stuff.
- eastWestMath 9y ago
  My undergrad math department had a class on mathematical logic (set theory, Peano arithmetic) that was required to take higher level math classes. Wrote down some basic statements (conjunction, modus ponens, etc) and said if this didn’t seem fairly obvious you should reconsider your math major.

WheelsAtLarge 9y ago

Cuban may be good at marketing, but he has a very shallow grasp of tech in general. I remember his big solution to video piracy was to always release movies a super high resolution so people would have to download extremely large files. This "genius" never thought that pirates could just downsample the movie. If you go back you'll find much more of this quality "advice." I would think twice about whatever he has to say. He has lots of opinions but most are off the cuff without much thought.