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I'm going to be the optimist here and instead of AI killing engineering jobs it's going to turn most engineers into much better engineers and what tech company

I'm going to be the optimist here and instead of AI killing engineering jobs it's going to turn most engineers into much better engineers and what tech company doesn't want a whole bunch of better engineers? Building applications right now is time intensive, it takes years to build products, months to build features, and maybe we change it to be weeks and days instead, respectively. Maybe it's all just upside.

adolph 4y ago
Speed of feature is less compelling than quality. There is a saying about EHRs, that they propagate error at the speed of light. Likewise speeding up feature accrual seems as if all the worst ideas will be implemented first as the best ones need time to think through and acculturate. On the other hand, if the models can be Atkinson-like and produce -2000 lines of code [0], that is a day to which I would look forward. 0. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Li...
- larve 4y ago
  I wouldn’t underestimate the ability to iterate on fully finished features quickly, if you have to operate with end users. Closing a feedback loop can lead to threshold effects.
  - adolph 4y ago
    That'd be great if true. Human nature being what it is, chances are good that the ill thought out and in retrospect harmful will be deployed just as faster than "fully finished" as they are now. Could that be iterated? Can a half baked release ever become whole or does progress just slow down and stretch out exponentially? 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... Will be grateful and relieved when proven wrong.
    - larve 4y ago
      Yeah, I think my point is more that this makes it possible to iterate quicker while maintaining quality, which might be beneficial. Of course if you are working in a team that cares about the result (and the business does too), then iteration is always a win.
noobermin 4y ago
>Building applications right now is time intensive, it takes years to build products, months to build features, and maybe we change it to be weeks and days instead, respectively. You want to increase churn? Are you insane? I feel like if you poll computer / phone users (ie., the vast majority of the population) one of the most annoying things users hate about modern devices are mandatory updates, like the infamous meme video where someone screams at their window machine updating. Now, you want to make it easier for middle managers to push new unneeded updates so they can pad their resumes, how absurd.
testtesttesst 4y ago
I think people are more impressed than they should be because of a misconception about what programmers really do. For most big software projects the bottleneck is not writing code and test boilerplate that runs correctly locally. Which of course LLMs can do reasonably well. Most time is spent on design, on integrations with other internal services, scaling concerns, and reasoning about other things that these models can't really reason about yet. I'm obvious impressed that these models can generate simple client/server websites and generate code to solve competitive programming problems. But I don't think they've "solved" software engineering; they've only solved "what you boss thinks software engineering is".
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  > But I don't think they've "solved" software engineering; they've only solved "what you boss thinks software engineering is". That's still bad, though, because your boss makes hiring and salary decisions. Maybe in the end it's a kind of "great filter" - companies and bosses that can't tell the difference don't survive. But a lot of good programmers can get fired before the clueless bosses die off...
  - testtesttesst 4y ago
    That's capitalism. After you get fired, if you can still produce useful labor there will ideally be more employers waiting; you can freelance if your visa situation allows it; or you can start your own business and outcompete. The cause of the inefficiency and "great filter" you're describing is the labor protectionism currently in the U.S. Theoretically a good programmer has arbitrage via their skills and expertise. If you can get things done people will pay you for it, assuming you're allowed to work (in the U.S., EU, etc.).
    - sidlls 4y ago
      Theoretically rarely beats ignorance in practice though. Software engineers in aggregate think and act like they’re working in a meritocracy (we aren’t) and this gives even more leverage to management and owners. It’s one of the big reasons engineer salaries right now aren’t as high as they otherwise would be.

adolph 4y ago

Speed of feature is less compelling than quality. There is a saying about EHRs, that they propagate error at the speed of light. Likewise speeding up feature accrual seems as if all the worst ideas will be implemented first as the best ones need time to think through and acculturate. On the other hand, if the models can be Atkinson-like and produce -2000 lines of code [0], that is a day to which I would look forward. 0. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Li...

larve 4y ago
I wouldn’t underestimate the ability to iterate on fully finished features quickly, if you have to operate with end users. Closing a feedback loop can lead to threshold effects.
- adolph 4y ago
  That'd be great if true. Human nature being what it is, chances are good that the ill thought out and in retrospect harmful will be deployed just as faster than "fully finished" as they are now. Could that be iterated? Can a half baked release ever become whole or does progress just slow down and stretch out exponentially? 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... Will be grateful and relieved when proven wrong.
  - larve 4y ago
    Yeah, I think my point is more that this makes it possible to iterate quicker while maintaining quality, which might be beneficial. Of course if you are working in a team that cares about the result (and the business does too), then iteration is always a win.

noobermin 4y ago

>Building applications right now is time intensive, it takes years to build products, months to build features, and maybe we change it to be weeks and days instead, respectively. You want to increase churn? Are you insane? I feel like if you poll computer / phone users (ie., the vast majority of the population) one of the most annoying things users hate about modern devices are mandatory updates, like the infamous meme video where someone screams at their window machine updating. Now, you want to make it easier for middle managers to push new unneeded updates so they can pad their resumes, how absurd.

testtesttesst 4y ago

I think people are more impressed than they should be because of a misconception about what programmers really do. For most big software projects the bottleneck is not writing code and test boilerplate that runs correctly locally. Which of course LLMs can do reasonably well. Most time is spent on design, on integrations with other internal services, scaling concerns, and reasoning about other things that these models can't really reason about yet. I'm obvious impressed that these models can generate simple client/server websites and generate code to solve competitive programming problems. But I don't think they've "solved" software engineering; they've only solved "what you boss thinks software engineering is".

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
> But I don't think they've "solved" software engineering; they've only solved "what you boss thinks software engineering is". That's still bad, though, because your boss makes hiring and salary decisions. Maybe in the end it's a kind of "great filter" - companies and bosses that can't tell the difference don't survive. But a lot of good programmers can get fired before the clueless bosses die off...
- testtesttesst 4y ago
  That's capitalism. After you get fired, if you can still produce useful labor there will ideally be more employers waiting; you can freelance if your visa situation allows it; or you can start your own business and outcompete. The cause of the inefficiency and "great filter" you're describing is the labor protectionism currently in the U.S. Theoretically a good programmer has arbitrage via their skills and expertise. If you can get things done people will pay you for it, assuming you're allowed to work (in the U.S., EU, etc.).
  - sidlls 4y ago
    Theoretically rarely beats ignorance in practice though. Software engineers in aggregate think and act like they’re working in a meritocracy (we aren’t) and this gives even more leverage to management and owners. It’s one of the big reasons engineer salaries right now aren’t as high as they otherwise would be.