6 ms·

AGIs should basically by definition be able to replace humans[1], so yes, when we get good enough AGIs that will happen. GPT4 won't be an AGI of course, but it

AGIs should basically by definition be able to replace humans[1], so yes, when we get good enough AGIs that will happen. GPT4 won't be an AGI of course, but it still could have a massive impact on the job market. A single engineer with GPT4 could potentially do the work of 10 engineers right now. Edit: To be clear, I used GPT4 as a placeholder for "some near future LLM". I'm not making any bets on GPT4 in particular. [1] See "The employment test" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence#Tests_for_confirming_human-level_AGI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...

ASalazarMX 4y ago
> A single engineer with GPT4 could potentially do the work of 10 engineers right now And the potential mistakes of several engineers too, so you would need more than one engineer to double-check the output. Remember that, even if they are truly amazing, LLMs are basically incredibly powerful predictive keyboards.
jackblemming 4y ago
If we're going to pull random numbers from where the sun doesn't shine, why don't we say the work of a hundred engineers? How about a billion? I've actually used ChatGPT and copilot and I can tell you it's not even 10% more productive, so I'm curious how you ended up with your estimate.
- travisjungroth 4y ago
  They said “could potentially”. They’re just making the argument (true IMO) that technology doesn’t have to replace a class of employee to have a huge effect. We still have farmers, but 1% of the population instead of >50%. Or, it could be like how assemblers didn’t get rid of software engineers but helped fuel the fire. Who knows.
  - andrepd 4y ago
    >could potentially "Potentially" we could explore the galaxy or have nanobots and Star Trek fabricators. What does it matter? ChatbotGPT is no closer to AGI than my keyboard autocomplete, and copilot is useless for any task whose answer cannot be googled in 20s.
- redox99 4y ago
  It's just an example to make the point easier to understand A single engineer with [some near future LLM] could potentially do the work of [X] engineers right now.
- ux-app 4y ago
  >I've actually used ChatGPT and copilot and I can tell you it's not even 10% more productive Use your imagination. Do you think that LLMs have hit their plateau? Not likely I'd say. With all the billions suddenly rushing into the space, you really think that ChatGPT v.X isn't going to replace you? Risky bet.
  - BaseballPhysics 4y ago
    > Do you think that LLMs have hit their plateau? Not likely I'd say. Mmmm, I don't know. I think LLMs are running up against fundamental limitations in the approach (hallucinations in particular) that will not be fixed unless truly new techniques are discovered. So I do actually think we're likely hitting a plateau.
    - ux-app 4y ago
      how did you reach those conclusions?
      - BaseballPhysics 4y ago
        Good question! So LLMs fundamentally do not encode the nature of facts and data. They're simply (well, no, extremely sophisticated) text prediction engines. There's no embedded comprehension. And that's basic to the approach companies like OpenAI are taking. That's why it's so easy to find factual errors in the generated text from these models: they can create text that's pleasing, but that's as much as they can do. The next leap, to generate language that's also accurate, will require new techniques to bake in actual understanding. Until then, these models will always have issues with hallucinations. Or, at least, that's my expectation. Certainly nothing we've seen in GPT 3, 3.5, or Bing, which is rumoured to be based on something close to GPT 4, indicates any advances in this area.
        nadermx 4y ago
        Perhaps, but just like humans some are more adept at tasks than others. And an AGI using LLM's is completly feasable, for example on a quick thought a LLM could be trained on many LLM all specifically designed for tasks, and verfied against other LLMs, etc
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Because ChatGPT is not self driven and has no ability to do things. I can quite easily imagine one person doing 10 peoples work with this tool. I can’t imagine them being able to type fast enough to do 100 jobs.
- alfalfasprout 4y ago
  The problem I'm seeing is that "engineers" are not interchangeable. For some folks, the job is all straight coding. For others, it's understanding requirements, talking to stakeholders and figuring out their requirements, figuring out how to make a clean design taking lots of other factors in mind. It's not that ChatGPT is incapable... it's that it's not inherently going to make me significantly more productive.
- evilduck 4y ago
  Where did you pull 10% from then? That also seems like you're reaching up your ass. As with all of these arguments, context matters. Both of you need to say what you're doing with these tools. I've personally found the combination to range from "utterly useless" (writing Rust for microcontrollers) to "I could see this eliminating jobs" (CRUD API work).
matwood 4y ago
> A single engineer with GPT4 could potentially do the work of 10 engineers right now. Big assumption, but if that's possible then businesses will fill that time. What used to take teams of people and big iron can now be done by a single person on a VPC. Did that take away jobs? Nope, requirements only expanded.
- alfalfasprout 4y ago
  Indeed, folks making these types of conclusions seem to assume that what there is to be built will remain "constant". No, the more productive the tools the bigger the requirements. Modern high level languages didn't eliminate engineers. They suddenly meant one engineer could do what it would have taken 10 to do in COBOL or C and so software became more complex and capable.
  - matwood 4y ago
    I'm reminded of people wanting to go back to plain html. That's great if I can get the business to go back to basic html features. Same with computer speed increases. If anything, humanity has shown uncanny ability exploit any surplus resource for profit. Of course there can be industry shifts (MS was the industry for a long time and IBM before them. Google wasn't always dominant), but the pie grows to fit the available resources.
roflyear 4y ago
Burnout is proportional to how mch you do I think. Even if you can solve hundreds of problems a day in theory youll probably get pretty roughed up

ASalazarMX 4y ago

> A single engineer with GPT4 could potentially do the work of 10 engineers right now And the potential mistakes of several engineers too, so you would need more than one engineer to double-check the output. Remember that, even if they are truly amazing, LLMs are basically incredibly powerful predictive keyboards.

jackblemming 4y ago

If we're going to pull random numbers from where the sun doesn't shine, why don't we say the work of a hundred engineers? How about a billion? I've actually used ChatGPT and copilot and I can tell you it's not even 10% more productive, so I'm curious how you ended up with your estimate.

travisjungroth 4y ago
They said “could potentially”. They’re just making the argument (true IMO) that technology doesn’t have to replace a class of employee to have a huge effect. We still have farmers, but 1% of the population instead of >50%. Or, it could be like how assemblers didn’t get rid of software engineers but helped fuel the fire. Who knows.
- andrepd 4y ago
  >could potentially "Potentially" we could explore the galaxy or have nanobots and Star Trek fabricators. What does it matter? ChatbotGPT is no closer to AGI than my keyboard autocomplete, and copilot is useless for any task whose answer cannot be googled in 20s.
redox99 4y ago
It's just an example to make the point easier to understand A single engineer with [some near future LLM] could potentially do the work of [X] engineers right now.
ux-app 4y ago
>I've actually used ChatGPT and copilot and I can tell you it's not even 10% more productive Use your imagination. Do you think that LLMs have hit their plateau? Not likely I'd say. With all the billions suddenly rushing into the space, you really think that ChatGPT v.X isn't going to replace you? Risky bet.
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago
  > Do you think that LLMs have hit their plateau? Not likely I'd say. Mmmm, I don't know. I think LLMs are running up against fundamental limitations in the approach (hallucinations in particular) that will not be fixed unless truly new techniques are discovered. So I do actually think we're likely hitting a plateau.
  - ux-app 4y ago
    how did you reach those conclusions?
    - BaseballPhysics 4y ago
      Good question! So LLMs fundamentally do not encode the nature of facts and data. They're simply (well, no, extremely sophisticated) text prediction engines. There's no embedded comprehension. And that's basic to the approach companies like OpenAI are taking. That's why it's so easy to find factual errors in the generated text from these models: they can create text that's pleasing, but that's as much as they can do. The next leap, to generate language that's also accurate, will require new techniques to bake in actual understanding. Until then, these models will always have issues with hallucinations. Or, at least, that's my expectation. Certainly nothing we've seen in GPT 3, 3.5, or Bing, which is rumoured to be based on something close to GPT 4, indicates any advances in this area.
      - nadermx 4y ago
        Perhaps, but just like humans some are more adept at tasks than others. And an AGI using LLM's is completly feasable, for example on a quick thought a LLM could be trained on many LLM all specifically designed for tasks, and verfied against other LLMs, etc
Gigachad 4y ago
Because ChatGPT is not self driven and has no ability to do things. I can quite easily imagine one person doing 10 peoples work with this tool. I can’t imagine them being able to type fast enough to do 100 jobs.
alfalfasprout 4y ago
The problem I'm seeing is that "engineers" are not interchangeable. For some folks, the job is all straight coding. For others, it's understanding requirements, talking to stakeholders and figuring out their requirements, figuring out how to make a clean design taking lots of other factors in mind. It's not that ChatGPT is incapable... it's that it's not inherently going to make me significantly more productive.
evilduck 4y ago
Where did you pull 10% from then? That also seems like you're reaching up your ass. As with all of these arguments, context matters. Both of you need to say what you're doing with these tools. I've personally found the combination to range from "utterly useless" (writing Rust for microcontrollers) to "I could see this eliminating jobs" (CRUD API work).

matwood 4y ago

> A single engineer with GPT4 could potentially do the work of 10 engineers right now. Big assumption, but if that's possible then businesses will fill that time. What used to take teams of people and big iron can now be done by a single person on a VPC. Did that take away jobs? Nope, requirements only expanded.

alfalfasprout 4y ago
Indeed, folks making these types of conclusions seem to assume that what there is to be built will remain "constant". No, the more productive the tools the bigger the requirements. Modern high level languages didn't eliminate engineers. They suddenly meant one engineer could do what it would have taken 10 to do in COBOL or C and so software became more complex and capable.
- matwood 4y ago
  I'm reminded of people wanting to go back to plain html. That's great if I can get the business to go back to basic html features. Same with computer speed increases. If anything, humanity has shown uncanny ability exploit any surplus resource for profit. Of course there can be industry shifts (MS was the industry for a long time and IBM before them. Google wasn't always dominant), but the pie grows to fit the available resources.

roflyear 4y ago

Burnout is proportional to how mch you do I think. Even if you can solve hundreds of problems a day in theory youll probably get pretty roughed up