4 ms·

100%. Even before you need language models, though, there's an insane amount of "digital manual labor" that involved people shuttling files around and validati

100%. Even before you need language models, though, there's an insane amount of "digital manual labor" that involved people shuttling files around and validating / cross referencing data in ways that would be done far more correctly and efficiently by software. In my opinion, low code tooling threatens many more jobs than AI does in the short term.

mxuribe 5y ago
> ...low code tooling threatens many more jobs than AI does in the short term. THIS 100%!
- Msw242 5y ago
  I don't buy it. Low code can make ICs much more productive, but you don't fire the other three... They have a ton of institutional and domain knowledge. You just find things for them to do that wouldn't have been worthwhile without the leverage that came from low code.
  - mxuribe 5y ago
    While i'm not in favor of firing folks (especially if they do have institutional, domain knowledge)...i firmly believe that orgs will endeavor to force or influence or sneakily trick folks who have domain knowledge into codifying such knowledge which gets input into digital processes which will - also think - get codified by low code tools. As a technologist i like the automation part, but as sympathetic human, i hate that humans will be impacted. By impacted of course i mean that crappy orgs won;t try to find more relevant roles for these impacted humans, they'll resort to crappy things likke layoffs. (Separately, i do believe very much in universal basic income...and in fact having something like UBI in place keeps both my tech brain and human brain happy in a sort of win-win scenario where we get more aujtomation, but humans are taken care of.)
judge2020 5y ago
This is how competition is snuffed out - the companies that realize this have already completed the switch or have started it and they'll be the ones to outlast all their competitors that have fallen behind with slower processes.
majormajor 5y ago
This seems like one of those problems where the last 5% is going to take 99% of the effort and time. A lot of people would be out of jobs if data was truly interchangeable, and there were robust ways of formatting data that would work for everything people wanted to do, and software was bug-free and exported/imported perfectly every time, but... even something "standard" like date/time data is all sorts of hard to have people and their systems actually do correctly in a general way.
- newhouseb 5y ago
  There's definitely a lot of spaces where this is true but a huge fraction of spaces are not even that complicated. I volunteer my time for various pandemic assistance and basic income work and the number of finance companies (banks, payment processors, etc) that rely on a human being regularly downloading a CSV from one system and uploading it unchanged to another is _absolutely_asinine_.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    That does sound near-trivial to automate, but then I've got to wonder how frequently "regular" is? Saving someone 15 minutes a day is gonna be hard to justify spending programmer time on - or paying for a 3rd party solution? Are there people moving those spreadsheets for like 20+hrs a week?
    - 41b696ef1113 5y ago
      >Are there people moving those spreadsheets for like 20+hrs a week? I am reminded of the Reddit thread[0] where one guy confessed to having automated his entire job. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_friends_call_me_a_scumbag_because_i/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_...
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      When I temped at Bank of America, there were 20s of people who effectively just shuttled CSVs between points A and B, and a whole on premise army of programmers who made our work redundant. So...
lumost 5y ago
This has been true for as long as people have written software. We eliminate ops with clouds, assembly with compilers, code with libraries, software with SaaS and platforms. What makes low-code/no-code different from everything else?
- newhouseb 5y ago
  I consider it yet another tool in the abstraction stack that allows folks without software backgrounds to use their expertise to fill their operational needs. Disclaimer: my intention with low/no-code tooling is likely broader and includes everything from WYSWIG form builders to Airtable automations, etc. The key to me is the usage of (1) syntax-free (2) domain-specific tooling to (3) configure software to meet (4) custom business needs (what a mouthful).
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  I don't think the GP means that low-code will eliminate programmer jobs, but that it will eliminate other office jobs. Seems quite probable to me, as it's their entire goal.

mxuribe 5y ago

> ...low code tooling threatens many more jobs than AI does in the short term. THIS 100%!

Msw242 5y ago
I don't buy it. Low code can make ICs much more productive, but you don't fire the other three... They have a ton of institutional and domain knowledge. You just find things for them to do that wouldn't have been worthwhile without the leverage that came from low code.
- mxuribe 5y ago
  While i'm not in favor of firing folks (especially if they do have institutional, domain knowledge)...i firmly believe that orgs will endeavor to force or influence or sneakily trick folks who have domain knowledge into codifying such knowledge which gets input into digital processes which will - also think - get codified by low code tools. As a technologist i like the automation part, but as sympathetic human, i hate that humans will be impacted. By impacted of course i mean that crappy orgs won;t try to find more relevant roles for these impacted humans, they'll resort to crappy things likke layoffs. (Separately, i do believe very much in universal basic income...and in fact having something like UBI in place keeps both my tech brain and human brain happy in a sort of win-win scenario where we get more aujtomation, but humans are taken care of.)

judge2020 5y ago

This is how competition is snuffed out - the companies that realize this have already completed the switch or have started it and they'll be the ones to outlast all their competitors that have fallen behind with slower processes.

majormajor 5y ago

This seems like one of those problems where the last 5% is going to take 99% of the effort and time. A lot of people would be out of jobs if data was truly interchangeable, and there were robust ways of formatting data that would work for everything people wanted to do, and software was bug-free and exported/imported perfectly every time, but... even something "standard" like date/time data is all sorts of hard to have people and their systems actually do correctly in a general way.

newhouseb 5y ago
There's definitely a lot of spaces where this is true but a huge fraction of spaces are not even that complicated. I volunteer my time for various pandemic assistance and basic income work and the number of finance companies (banks, payment processors, etc) that rely on a human being regularly downloading a CSV from one system and uploading it unchanged to another is _absolutely_asinine_.
- majormajor 5y ago
  That does sound near-trivial to automate, but then I've got to wonder how frequently "regular" is? Saving someone 15 minutes a day is gonna be hard to justify spending programmer time on - or paying for a 3rd party solution? Are there people moving those spreadsheets for like 20+hrs a week?
  - 41b696ef1113 5y ago
    >Are there people moving those spreadsheets for like 20+hrs a week? I am reminded of the Reddit thread[0] where one guy confessed to having automated his entire job. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_friends_call_me_a_scumbag_because_i/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_...
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    When I temped at Bank of America, there were 20s of people who effectively just shuttled CSVs between points A and B, and a whole on premise army of programmers who made our work redundant. So...

lumost 5y ago

This has been true for as long as people have written software. We eliminate ops with clouds, assembly with compilers, code with libraries, software with SaaS and platforms. What makes low-code/no-code different from everything else?

newhouseb 5y ago
I consider it yet another tool in the abstraction stack that allows folks without software backgrounds to use their expertise to fill their operational needs. Disclaimer: my intention with low/no-code tooling is likely broader and includes everything from WYSWIG form builders to Airtable automations, etc. The key to me is the usage of (1) syntax-free (2) domain-specific tooling to (3) configure software to meet (4) custom business needs (what a mouthful).
marcosdumay 5y ago
I don't think the GP means that low-code will eliminate programmer jobs, but that it will eliminate other office jobs. Seems quite probable to me, as it's their entire goal.