5 ms·

I asked this a couple of years ago here and I feel like I keep have to asking: is this our industry's way of trying to tell us something about where our jobs ar

I asked this a couple of years ago here and I feel like I keep have to asking: is this our industry's way of trying to tell us something about where our jobs are headed? I can't help but get the sense that we're trying to tell ourselves "evolve or die" and that the web jobs will move towards AI/ML if you want to stay employed in the 10-20 year range.

danaur 8y ago
I don't really understand the sentiment that the web jobs are going away. Web/mobile and supporting technology has only risen in relevance. ML has some narrow use cases where it can solve some interesting problems or eek out some additional efficiency, but I don't see programming move towards it.
- snodnipper 8y ago
  as a mobile dev, I have been considering this with some UX folks. Few things going for AI/ML - conversation interfaces should be far cheaper/quicker to produce in comparison to traditional app development. Furthermore, talking and touch are natural ways to interact (e.g. pointing on a map whilst talking) vs endless long presses and menu items. Whilst I have been involved in Android since the beginning I personally would not encourage younger folks to focus too much at the expense of new technologies (inc. blockchain tech for that matter). That said, we hopefully have another 10 years!
  - mbreese 8y ago
    That’s a good point. The interface between the user and the computer has been dominated recently by web apps and mobile. Historically, it was native GUIs. But, I could totally see AI/ML driving voice interfaces in the future.
    - 52-6F-62 8y ago
      I recently bought myself an Apple Watch. I’m not sure I would have agreed before using this thing. I mean maybe for people for whom computers were too foreign, or for those who grew up with no other options... But no, I’ve been enjoying the experience more and more. Texting my girlfriend by voice. Asking Siri to find something on a map for me. First time I’ve been impressed by the pragmatic nature of it and not just finding it a clever toy (at least in some time). I’m still wary of some of the implications, but I’m cautiously optimistic now more than I would have been. That said, it’s certainly not my area of expertise so I’m also wary it spells my own career doom if I don’t get smart.
  - mattlondon 8y ago
    Voice and speech stuff isn't going to work in today's work environments. Can you imagine an open office full of people jabbering away to their computers? I guess voice printing will to some extent prevent other people "highjacking" your computer while trying to control theirs, but the noise would be extreme. For certain industries - e.g. tech - people like quiet to concentrate. Not unique to tech of course... libraries are quiet too for the same reason. I cant imagine the average office where concentration is required benefiting from a call-centre-esque environment where everyone is talking out loud. .. but I guess it might mean we can get away from open offices and back to private offices?! :-)
    - sdenton4 8y ago
      One could imagine responding to subsonic commands, though, with a microphone in contact with the throat... I can't imagine using it for programming, but could be cool for quick navigation.
      - antidesitter 8y ago
        Perhaps you can skip the vocal system entirely and go straight to EEG (assuming we manage to improve the signal-to-noise ratio).
    - melling 8y ago
      Yeah, there’s always a guy in one of these conversations that can’t imagine working in an office with people talking to their computers. I guess you get to be that guy this time. The other guy is the one who will never talk in public to a computer. Finally, you have the guy who can’t imagine not using a keyboard to program. For the rest of us, we have no problem talking to our computers, and we anxiously await the future to arrive.
    - snodnipper 8y ago
      sure - as part of the presentation, the UX guy also demo'ed something like botsociety.io. Essentially, he had a Facebook chat bot with buttons to hint what is possible (leading the conversation). That sort of interaction could be likened to messaging them versus talking to them...and perfectly suitable for an office or where you don't want to broadcast certain info. So whilst ChatOps might be fairly basic today I am open to it becoming very much more advanced in the coming years.
  - orange222 8y ago
    But voice conveniently leaves out exposing to users the capabilities of the software. Have fun exploring all the features Google maps has by barking at the app where 99% of your commands are rejected.
    - snodnipper 8y ago
      pretty sure folks will be able to just ask what it can do...and the response could of course look like a man page where folks can drill down further. I don't think we necessarily need to think the interactions will exclude a screen...but of course they could depending on the hardware / situation...today that activity might be driving...but perhaps we won't be driving all that much by the time this tech has advanced sufficiently.
- wycs 8y ago
  Web development feels AI complete to me. In the sense that it would take human level AI to do. However, chess felt AI complete to Kasparov.
  - yters 8y ago
    Kasparov found out AI+human is better than AI or human alone when he held an AI vs human vs AI+human tournament.
    - wycs 8y ago
      This is no longer the case; human computer hybrids are no longer competitive in chess. From Wikipedia: Computer chess engine Zor won the freestyle 2017 Ultimate Challenge tournament. The best human plus computer came in 3rd place. In 2017, chess computer engines are superior to human plus computers.
      - yters 8y ago
        Well, it's a finite space, and with a big enough lookup table then a chess engine will always win.
        pedrosorio 8y ago
        If you're truly not aware of the issues with optimizing problems in "finite spaces", I recommend you take an online course in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_optimization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_optimization
        derangedHorse 8y ago
        His argument still stands. The fact that combinatorial optimization is difficult doesn't change the fact that the problem space is finite and can theoretically be enumerated by a very fast computer with lots of space. This also means that the heuristics that are typically used (that dramatically reduce the problem space at a rate tied to the size of the problem) can make the exploration of potential solutions much easier than it once was.
mbreese 8y ago
Ask a client/server native. application programmer from the 90s if they needed to learn how to do web development. But, I think ML/AI is a bit different than that. ML seems like more of a backend thing or specialized application. How many people need to work on face authentication? Or object recognition? I’m just not sure how much AI/ML will be considered a general purpose programmer requirement. Interacting with models, sure... but not necessarily making them. In this respect maybe ML is similar to databases — we all use them, but don’t need to make them. There will always be programmers writing at the interface between the user and the computer. Right now, those developers are heavily skewed towards web apps. But there is a sizable amount of mobile development too. If anything, I’d think the web jobs would move closer towards mobile as opposed to ML.
- kqr 8y ago
  I think your definition of ML may be too narrow. I recently had on my plate to determine -- for all incoming requests -- whether or not they belonged to an outlier category that was only very loosely defined as a group, but impossible to separate on an individual level. This is one of those situations where I greatly benefited from thinking of the problem from an ML perspective, as it allowed me to create a very simple probabilistic model and verify that it was sufficiently accurate. I believe we'll get more of those "ML in the small" things popping up even for regular developers. It's not something new, it's just a mental perspective shift toward the probabilistic.
  - softawre 8y ago
    Great comment, and totally agree. And this exactly why an enterprising software engineer would be well served to be familiar with how to do basic machine learning. You don't have to be great at it, you just need to know how to copy somebody else's notebook or whatever and get it to work on your simple data set.
amelius 8y ago
I think it's the opposite. "AI/ML engineer" is the new "web developer". Soon everybody and their mother can make ML models and apply them. You may ask if it isn't already the case.
- leesec 8y ago
  I think you're probably on to something. However, just as many people can hop in to web development and quickly create value (or at least CRUD apps), you still need really experienced people with a breadth of knowledge to push the field/work on really complicated or large scale systems. It's the same for AI/ML/DL. Basically anybody can train an image classifier right now, but only a handful of teams on earth understand computer vision well enough to attempt to tackle self driving cars.
currymj 8y ago
I don't think it's intended for a general audience. It's intended mainly for people who have bought in to the idea of "effective altruism", and want a global-utility-maximizing career, and also at least somewhat believe AI research is important to that goal. You should still learn some ML because it's cool and fun, though, and will give you valuable perspective.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
We should always be telling ourselves "evolve or die." When has that not been a relevant credo, especially in tech?
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Mitchell & Webb's classic Bronze Age orientation day sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTLyXamRvk4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTLyXamRvk4

danaur 8y ago

I don't really understand the sentiment that the web jobs are going away. Web/mobile and supporting technology has only risen in relevance. ML has some narrow use cases where it can solve some interesting problems or eek out some additional efficiency, but I don't see programming move towards it.

snodnipper 8y ago
as a mobile dev, I have been considering this with some UX folks. Few things going for AI/ML - conversation interfaces should be far cheaper/quicker to produce in comparison to traditional app development. Furthermore, talking and touch are natural ways to interact (e.g. pointing on a map whilst talking) vs endless long presses and menu items. Whilst I have been involved in Android since the beginning I personally would not encourage younger folks to focus too much at the expense of new technologies (inc. blockchain tech for that matter). That said, we hopefully have another 10 years!
- mbreese 8y ago
  That’s a good point. The interface between the user and the computer has been dominated recently by web apps and mobile. Historically, it was native GUIs. But, I could totally see AI/ML driving voice interfaces in the future.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    I recently bought myself an Apple Watch. I’m not sure I would have agreed before using this thing. I mean maybe for people for whom computers were too foreign, or for those who grew up with no other options... But no, I’ve been enjoying the experience more and more. Texting my girlfriend by voice. Asking Siri to find something on a map for me. First time I’ve been impressed by the pragmatic nature of it and not just finding it a clever toy (at least in some time). I’m still wary of some of the implications, but I’m cautiously optimistic now more than I would have been. That said, it’s certainly not my area of expertise so I’m also wary it spells my own career doom if I don’t get smart.
- mattlondon 8y ago
  Voice and speech stuff isn't going to work in today's work environments. Can you imagine an open office full of people jabbering away to their computers? I guess voice printing will to some extent prevent other people "highjacking" your computer while trying to control theirs, but the noise would be extreme. For certain industries - e.g. tech - people like quiet to concentrate. Not unique to tech of course... libraries are quiet too for the same reason. I cant imagine the average office where concentration is required benefiting from a call-centre-esque environment where everyone is talking out loud. .. but I guess it might mean we can get away from open offices and back to private offices?! :-)
  - sdenton4 8y ago
    One could imagine responding to subsonic commands, though, with a microphone in contact with the throat... I can't imagine using it for programming, but could be cool for quick navigation.
    - antidesitter 8y ago
      Perhaps you can skip the vocal system entirely and go straight to EEG (assuming we manage to improve the signal-to-noise ratio).
  - melling 8y ago
    Yeah, there’s always a guy in one of these conversations that can’t imagine working in an office with people talking to their computers. I guess you get to be that guy this time. The other guy is the one who will never talk in public to a computer. Finally, you have the guy who can’t imagine not using a keyboard to program. For the rest of us, we have no problem talking to our computers, and we anxiously await the future to arrive.
  - snodnipper 8y ago
    sure - as part of the presentation, the UX guy also demo'ed something like botsociety.io. Essentially, he had a Facebook chat bot with buttons to hint what is possible (leading the conversation). That sort of interaction could be likened to messaging them versus talking to them...and perfectly suitable for an office or where you don't want to broadcast certain info. So whilst ChatOps might be fairly basic today I am open to it becoming very much more advanced in the coming years.
- orange222 8y ago
  But voice conveniently leaves out exposing to users the capabilities of the software. Have fun exploring all the features Google maps has by barking at the app where 99% of your commands are rejected.
  - snodnipper 8y ago
    pretty sure folks will be able to just ask what it can do...and the response could of course look like a man page where folks can drill down further. I don't think we necessarily need to think the interactions will exclude a screen...but of course they could depending on the hardware / situation...today that activity might be driving...but perhaps we won't be driving all that much by the time this tech has advanced sufficiently.
wycs 8y ago
Web development feels AI complete to me. In the sense that it would take human level AI to do. However, chess felt AI complete to Kasparov.
- yters 8y ago
  Kasparov found out AI+human is better than AI or human alone when he held an AI vs human vs AI+human tournament.
  - wycs 8y ago
    This is no longer the case; human computer hybrids are no longer competitive in chess. From Wikipedia: Computer chess engine Zor won the freestyle 2017 Ultimate Challenge tournament. The best human plus computer came in 3rd place. In 2017, chess computer engines are superior to human plus computers.
    - yters 8y ago
      Well, it's a finite space, and with a big enough lookup table then a chess engine will always win.
      - pedrosorio 8y ago
        If you're truly not aware of the issues with optimizing problems in "finite spaces", I recommend you take an online course in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_optimization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_optimization
        derangedHorse 8y ago
        His argument still stands. The fact that combinatorial optimization is difficult doesn't change the fact that the problem space is finite and can theoretically be enumerated by a very fast computer with lots of space. This also means that the heuristics that are typically used (that dramatically reduce the problem space at a rate tied to the size of the problem) can make the exploration of potential solutions much easier than it once was.

mbreese 8y ago

Ask a client/server native. application programmer from the 90s if they needed to learn how to do web development. But, I think ML/AI is a bit different than that. ML seems like more of a backend thing or specialized application. How many people need to work on face authentication? Or object recognition? I’m just not sure how much AI/ML will be considered a general purpose programmer requirement. Interacting with models, sure... but not necessarily making them. In this respect maybe ML is similar to databases — we all use them, but don’t need to make them. There will always be programmers writing at the interface between the user and the computer. Right now, those developers are heavily skewed towards web apps. But there is a sizable amount of mobile development too. If anything, I’d think the web jobs would move closer towards mobile as opposed to ML.

kqr 8y ago
I think your definition of ML may be too narrow. I recently had on my plate to determine -- for all incoming requests -- whether or not they belonged to an outlier category that was only very loosely defined as a group, but impossible to separate on an individual level. This is one of those situations where I greatly benefited from thinking of the problem from an ML perspective, as it allowed me to create a very simple probabilistic model and verify that it was sufficiently accurate. I believe we'll get more of those "ML in the small" things popping up even for regular developers. It's not something new, it's just a mental perspective shift toward the probabilistic.
- softawre 8y ago
  Great comment, and totally agree. And this exactly why an enterprising software engineer would be well served to be familiar with how to do basic machine learning. You don't have to be great at it, you just need to know how to copy somebody else's notebook or whatever and get it to work on your simple data set.

amelius 8y ago

I think it's the opposite. "AI/ML engineer" is the new "web developer". Soon everybody and their mother can make ML models and apply them. You may ask if it isn't already the case.

leesec 8y ago
I think you're probably on to something. However, just as many people can hop in to web development and quickly create value (or at least CRUD apps), you still need really experienced people with a breadth of knowledge to push the field/work on really complicated or large scale systems. It's the same for AI/ML/DL. Basically anybody can train an image classifier right now, but only a handful of teams on earth understand computer vision well enough to attempt to tackle self driving cars.

currymj 8y ago

I don't think it's intended for a general audience. It's intended mainly for people who have bought in to the idea of "effective altruism", and want a global-utility-maximizing career, and also at least somewhat believe AI research is important to that goal. You should still learn some ML because it's cool and fun, though, and will give you valuable perspective.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

We should always be telling ourselves "evolve or die." When has that not been a relevant credo, especially in tech?

yesenadam 8y ago
Mitchell & Webb's classic Bronze Age orientation day sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTLyXamRvk4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTLyXamRvk4