5 ms·

COVID taught me to take these changes seriously, the hard way. I told my wife that lockdowns/masks would be at least a two year phenomenon, given how long the

COVID taught me to take these changes seriously, the hard way. I told my wife that lockdowns/masks would be at least a two year phenomenon, given how long the Spanish flu took - and our mitigation would make things take longer, not shorter. This had many obvious implications in my life, where I lived for the next 5 years, what jobs/skills I should be wary of vs. focus on, what stocks I should bet on.. etc. But I didn't behave accordingly with this obvious conclusion I had made. I struggled to actually take the leap and make changes in my life. I made very few stock bets, for example. Also we didn't take the opportunity to move/change plan/etc around real estate. With AI, I feel like this is a similar moment. My employer has an internal copilot thingie, and it's amazing when trying to use some internal library/service I've never used before. It even integrates with Emacs. What is obviously true about AI, and how does it affect your life? Curious what other software engineers are doing to prepare for these types of obvious changes.

djmips 4y ago
Deer in headlights mostly. But also diving in and trying out all the things!
malauxyeux 4y ago
> Curious what other software engineers are doing to prepare for these types of obvious changes. Contemplating a professional change. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic; people aren't being replaced yet. But maybe it's time for something else for me. There are dire staffing shortages in nursing homes where I live – e.g., people develop bed sores because no one is available to turn them. I certainly could dedicate the rest of my life to that and it would make a real, tangible difference to people's lives. It's a scary change though. I am a bit squeamish and I wonder how I'd fare. And it's a big loss in pay. That's where I am in my AI-induced existential crisis, anyway.
- raincom 4y ago
  Nursing homes abuse nurses, nursing assistants by hiring less number of people, also pay 50% of what hospitals pay. Just beware.
  - ticviking 4y ago
    Sounds like an industry ripe for disruption.
    - giesch 4y ago
      Private equity has been disrupting it for a while, that's why it's like this.
    - majormajor 4y ago
      Very few industries have been broadly "disrupted" by replacements that hire more people to give more individual attention to each customer. It's rather antithetical to the whole model.
  - malauxyeux 4y ago
    Thanks for the warning. I'm in small town France. I know the picture isn't rosy. E.g., one of the nursing homes near me is Catholic-run and so understaffed that on Sundays, only those attending mass are helped out of bed. That place pays its nursing assistants a premium, though wages are still low in the field, compared to everything else. There just aren't many people willing to do a tough, rather gross job.
- flangola7 4y ago
  Toyota is working on nursing robots that can handle many of the routine tasks like helping people out of bed and walk to the bathroom.
  - malauxyeux 4y ago
    That would be lovely, considering the staffing shortages, assuming it doesn't deprive people of their remaining autonomy – when you start doing things for old folks, they tend to lose the capacity to do it themselves, surprisingly quickly. There's already lots of tech in nursing homes to make transferring people easier on the caregivers, but full automation would be great. But beyond that, getting people out of bed is one thing. Undressed, washed, skin treatments applied, dressed is another.
    - jeffreygoesto 4y ago
      How many relatives did you have in a nursing home? People being forced to live there because they typically can't live at home any more, are deprived of social contact. Staff has only minutes to do the most necessary things and rush on to the next. Full automation would be hell. People are social, even if they often don't admit it. Have you ever seen the eyes of an old person getting a gentle back rub and a little conversation? Don't try to take that away.
      - malauxyeux 4y ago
        > Don't try to take that away. I'm not sure if you meant to respond to me or someone else. Or maybe my response wasn't clear. No problem either way. I don't think full automation of carer duties is going to come anytime soon. It's far too technical and delicate. And absolutely provides psychological benefits for residents, as you said. What would be great is if technology could provide even more help for transferring folks from one place to another securely. Lots of elderly people fall. And lots of carers get injured when they try to stop elderly people from falling. Edit: Maybe it's the word "transfer" that's wrong and causing the misunderstanding. It probably sounds like the old people get put on a conveyor belt or something. "Transfert" is the word used in French nursing homes for helping a person get – say – from their bed to the toilet or to their recliner. And it's risky for everyone involved.
LurkerAtTheGate 4y ago
As I see it, this is another step in a field whose history is a story of force-multipliers. 60 years ago, they used punch-cards. Every decade or so sees a sizable jump in how much an individual programmer can accomplish in a given time frame, and it has only increased the demand for such specialists. For most of that time, we made middle-class money like most other engineering disciplines. We're due for a reversion to the mean. Lately I keep thinking about Star Trek - everyone can issue commands to the computer, but they still had vast armies of engineers.
- carlmr 4y ago
  >Lately I keep thinking about Star Trek - everyone can issue commands to the computer, but they still had vast armies of engineers. There's a certain truth to that. I have a few colleagues that can't force-multiply with StackOverflow and Google yet. Their command of English is just not on the level to search the American internet. So they restrict themselves to the German internet. While ChatGPT works just as well in German as in English and this might enable them to harness it better. I think there will again be some people that are and some people that aren't able to use it properly. If you can verbally express your issue you can ask it, and then you need to make sure the response actually works and isn't hallucinated, and you will need to make sure it works in conjunction with the rest of the code base. In essence what we have been doing with StackOverflow and Google is being supercharged now. And while you can find almost every answer on StackOverflow, putting it all together, testing it, designing the system as a whole has taken up more and more mindshare.
gonzo41 4y ago
Much new software will be created. And all of it will be legacy. I ask chat GPT to write code and it does it very well. But sometimes it writes real crap. I'm not sure it's yet at a point where you can say, "I have a complex system, I need to keep it running and change it likes this" Jobs that require judgment, change management and handling legacy code will boom. It's better to think of chat GPT like auto aiming. Or going from hammers to nail guns.
- buza 4y ago
  Presumably it would need to be trained with good examples of solutions to complex problems. Maybe there just won't be that many for the foreseeable future.
  - weq 4y ago
    Yeh exactly. AI was trained on real data, and in a few years, there will only be AI versions of real data to run off. ie. alot of that really crappy code will be deployed to github, and the result will be that and more shitty code will be written. Thats pretty much what has happened over the last 30 years. You need less skills to produce more and more. Google search started it all, i remmeber back then I quipped the Offshored devs wouldnt be able to get a job without an internet connection because previously us engineers prided ourselves on understand and memorising APIs. The Ai programmer will outpace India's cert mills in quick succession but it wont benifit anyone except the Large Corperations who own the Ai. Atleast the Google devs added questions to SO, the AI dev is leecher who only profits, plagerises, never contributes.
    - bubbleRefuge 4y ago
      Interesting, point. But won't, there be allot of so called AI whisperers who train and own models that are very good.
arvinsim 4y ago
> Curious what other software engineers are doing to prepare for these types of obvious changes. Wouldn't Software Engineers just work on a higher level of abstraction if AI can automate the mundane details?
- rg111 4y ago
  And by doing so, many people will be replaced. It is undeniable. Sure, developers will be working on a higher level of abstraction, but in the higher level, you will need lesser people. So, people will be laid off. Make no mistake of that. And there will be segments where entire products can be spewed out by AI. There will be 100% layoff on those teams. A manager can now supervise 5-7 products and there will be one "Chief/Principal Engineer" who does the prompting for 2-3 products. Then there will be systems and devops people with much lesser number. All of IT people won't lose their jobs, for sure. But many many will be laid off and hiring will significantly be dropped. And owners/shareholders of IT companies will grow richer and make bank when the techies will be unemployed. The techies may go on to teach Math or Physics to High Schoolers, or find other jobs, but then those people will be replaced. UBI will be the way to go. But countries like India, China, Indonesia will be screwed. Mark my words, very bad days are coming.
  - Papirola 4y ago
    people use to program by punching cards. then compilers came. I'd say the opposite is about to happen: the boilerplate work will be done by AI, leaving more time to higher level abstractions to humans.
  - arvinsim 4y ago
    Guess that means that engineers should embrace the management side then.
    - rg111 4y ago
      Total numbers of managers will change, too, and the remaining ones will have increased workload.

djmips 4y ago

Deer in headlights mostly. But also diving in and trying out all the things!

malauxyeux 4y ago

> Curious what other software engineers are doing to prepare for these types of obvious changes. Contemplating a professional change. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic; people aren't being replaced yet. But maybe it's time for something else for me. There are dire staffing shortages in nursing homes where I live – e.g., people develop bed sores because no one is available to turn them. I certainly could dedicate the rest of my life to that and it would make a real, tangible difference to people's lives. It's a scary change though. I am a bit squeamish and I wonder how I'd fare. And it's a big loss in pay. That's where I am in my AI-induced existential crisis, anyway.

raincom 4y ago
Nursing homes abuse nurses, nursing assistants by hiring less number of people, also pay 50% of what hospitals pay. Just beware.
- ticviking 4y ago
  Sounds like an industry ripe for disruption.
  - giesch 4y ago
    Private equity has been disrupting it for a while, that's why it's like this.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    Very few industries have been broadly "disrupted" by replacements that hire more people to give more individual attention to each customer. It's rather antithetical to the whole model.
- malauxyeux 4y ago
  Thanks for the warning. I'm in small town France. I know the picture isn't rosy. E.g., one of the nursing homes near me is Catholic-run and so understaffed that on Sundays, only those attending mass are helped out of bed. That place pays its nursing assistants a premium, though wages are still low in the field, compared to everything else. There just aren't many people willing to do a tough, rather gross job.
flangola7 4y ago
Toyota is working on nursing robots that can handle many of the routine tasks like helping people out of bed and walk to the bathroom.
- malauxyeux 4y ago
  That would be lovely, considering the staffing shortages, assuming it doesn't deprive people of their remaining autonomy – when you start doing things for old folks, they tend to lose the capacity to do it themselves, surprisingly quickly. There's already lots of tech in nursing homes to make transferring people easier on the caregivers, but full automation would be great. But beyond that, getting people out of bed is one thing. Undressed, washed, skin treatments applied, dressed is another.
  - jeffreygoesto 4y ago
    How many relatives did you have in a nursing home? People being forced to live there because they typically can't live at home any more, are deprived of social contact. Staff has only minutes to do the most necessary things and rush on to the next. Full automation would be hell. People are social, even if they often don't admit it. Have you ever seen the eyes of an old person getting a gentle back rub and a little conversation? Don't try to take that away.
    - malauxyeux 4y ago
      > Don't try to take that away. I'm not sure if you meant to respond to me or someone else. Or maybe my response wasn't clear. No problem either way. I don't think full automation of carer duties is going to come anytime soon. It's far too technical and delicate. And absolutely provides psychological benefits for residents, as you said. What would be great is if technology could provide even more help for transferring folks from one place to another securely. Lots of elderly people fall. And lots of carers get injured when they try to stop elderly people from falling. Edit: Maybe it's the word "transfer" that's wrong and causing the misunderstanding. It probably sounds like the old people get put on a conveyor belt or something. "Transfert" is the word used in French nursing homes for helping a person get – say – from their bed to the toilet or to their recliner. And it's risky for everyone involved.

LurkerAtTheGate 4y ago

As I see it, this is another step in a field whose history is a story of force-multipliers. 60 years ago, they used punch-cards. Every decade or so sees a sizable jump in how much an individual programmer can accomplish in a given time frame, and it has only increased the demand for such specialists. For most of that time, we made middle-class money like most other engineering disciplines. We're due for a reversion to the mean. Lately I keep thinking about Star Trek - everyone can issue commands to the computer, but they still had vast armies of engineers.

carlmr 4y ago
>Lately I keep thinking about Star Trek - everyone can issue commands to the computer, but they still had vast armies of engineers. There's a certain truth to that. I have a few colleagues that can't force-multiply with StackOverflow and Google yet. Their command of English is just not on the level to search the American internet. So they restrict themselves to the German internet. While ChatGPT works just as well in German as in English and this might enable them to harness it better. I think there will again be some people that are and some people that aren't able to use it properly. If you can verbally express your issue you can ask it, and then you need to make sure the response actually works and isn't hallucinated, and you will need to make sure it works in conjunction with the rest of the code base. In essence what we have been doing with StackOverflow and Google is being supercharged now. And while you can find almost every answer on StackOverflow, putting it all together, testing it, designing the system as a whole has taken up more and more mindshare.

gonzo41 4y ago

Much new software will be created. And all of it will be legacy. I ask chat GPT to write code and it does it very well. But sometimes it writes real crap. I'm not sure it's yet at a point where you can say, "I have a complex system, I need to keep it running and change it likes this" Jobs that require judgment, change management and handling legacy code will boom. It's better to think of chat GPT like auto aiming. Or going from hammers to nail guns.

buza 4y ago
Presumably it would need to be trained with good examples of solutions to complex problems. Maybe there just won't be that many for the foreseeable future.
- weq 4y ago
  Yeh exactly. AI was trained on real data, and in a few years, there will only be AI versions of real data to run off. ie. alot of that really crappy code will be deployed to github, and the result will be that and more shitty code will be written. Thats pretty much what has happened over the last 30 years. You need less skills to produce more and more. Google search started it all, i remmeber back then I quipped the Offshored devs wouldnt be able to get a job without an internet connection because previously us engineers prided ourselves on understand and memorising APIs. The Ai programmer will outpace India's cert mills in quick succession but it wont benifit anyone except the Large Corperations who own the Ai. Atleast the Google devs added questions to SO, the AI dev is leecher who only profits, plagerises, never contributes.
  - bubbleRefuge 4y ago
    Interesting, point. But won't, there be allot of so called AI whisperers who train and own models that are very good.

arvinsim 4y ago

> Curious what other software engineers are doing to prepare for these types of obvious changes. Wouldn't Software Engineers just work on a higher level of abstraction if AI can automate the mundane details?

rg111 4y ago
And by doing so, many people will be replaced. It is undeniable. Sure, developers will be working on a higher level of abstraction, but in the higher level, you will need lesser people. So, people will be laid off. Make no mistake of that. And there will be segments where entire products can be spewed out by AI. There will be 100% layoff on those teams. A manager can now supervise 5-7 products and there will be one "Chief/Principal Engineer" who does the prompting for 2-3 products. Then there will be systems and devops people with much lesser number. All of IT people won't lose their jobs, for sure. But many many will be laid off and hiring will significantly be dropped. And owners/shareholders of IT companies will grow richer and make bank when the techies will be unemployed. The techies may go on to teach Math or Physics to High Schoolers, or find other jobs, but then those people will be replaced. UBI will be the way to go. But countries like India, China, Indonesia will be screwed. Mark my words, very bad days are coming.
- Papirola 4y ago
  people use to program by punching cards. then compilers came. I'd say the opposite is about to happen: the boilerplate work will be done by AI, leaving more time to higher level abstractions to humans.
- arvinsim 4y ago
  Guess that means that engineers should embrace the management side then.
  - rg111 4y ago
    Total numbers of managers will change, too, and the remaining ones will have increased workload.