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I'm not as worried about AI "stealing" my job as I am worried that it's going to make my job unappealing. As a software engineer, what motivates me most is the

I'm not as worried about AI "stealing" my job as I am worried that it's going to make my job unappealing. As a software engineer, what motivates me most is the creative aspect of it. I like building and designing things. I like thinking about every line of code that I write. If people start outsourcing their coding to generative AI, and if I find myself feeling pressured to follow suit in order to keep up, then everything I enjoy about coding goes away.

gpanders 4y ago
I completely agree. Many of the recent articles and blog posts written by AI enthusiasts giving examples of how AI makes their job "easier" or "more productive" just demonstrates this to me even further. What they call "more productive" looks to me like "incredibly boring". In addition, another point I don't often see mentioned is the alarmingly likely possibility that all AI-enhanced software engineering will go through these tools that are owned by 1 or 2 (American) tech companies. Are people really excited about a future where you can't even perform the basics of your skillset without depending on a Microsoft service? We are rapidly advancing toward a future where a single company owns the most popular text editor, the most popular code hosting platform, (one of) the most used cloud infrastructure platforms, and soon, if the AI enthusiasts have it right, the tool that will be a "necessity" to even write code at all. If that future unfolds, I will leave software voluntarily long before I get "replaced".
- patrickmay 4y ago
  Emacs will always be here.
newhotelowner 4y ago
It depeneds on what you are working on and your position. Isn't it a lot of code is repitative? Test cases are mostly repitative. AI can help you with that and your productivity increase significantly. I write code/program mostly to make my life easier and well I like to write to code. And AI/copilot just helps me write the better code faster.
- gspencley 4y ago
  > And AI/copilot just helps me write the better code faster. Consider that AI, by necessity, has to be trained on an aggregate of human output. That means that, by definition, the aggregate amount of data that it's trained on will be representative of the "average" solution to any problem. This doesn't mean that I can always do better, but I wouldn't assume that what AI will give me would be "good." Most developers I speak with who are using CoPilot and ChatGPT tell me that they always examine the output and have to "massage" it a little. But I don't see it jiving with my workflow, specifically. In any case, if people find it useful then great! What works for others will not always be what works for me and vice versa.

gpanders 4y ago

I completely agree. Many of the recent articles and blog posts written by AI enthusiasts giving examples of how AI makes their job "easier" or "more productive" just demonstrates this to me even further. What they call "more productive" looks to me like "incredibly boring". In addition, another point I don't often see mentioned is the alarmingly likely possibility that all AI-enhanced software engineering will go through these tools that are owned by 1 or 2 (American) tech companies. Are people really excited about a future where you can't even perform the basics of your skillset without depending on a Microsoft service? We are rapidly advancing toward a future where a single company owns the most popular text editor, the most popular code hosting platform, (one of) the most used cloud infrastructure platforms, and soon, if the AI enthusiasts have it right, the tool that will be a "necessity" to even write code at all. If that future unfolds, I will leave software voluntarily long before I get "replaced".

patrickmay 4y ago
Emacs will always be here.

newhotelowner 4y ago

It depeneds on what you are working on and your position. Isn't it a lot of code is repitative? Test cases are mostly repitative. AI can help you with that and your productivity increase significantly. I write code/program mostly to make my life easier and well I like to write to code. And AI/copilot just helps me write the better code faster.

gspencley 4y ago
> And AI/copilot just helps me write the better code faster. Consider that AI, by necessity, has to be trained on an aggregate of human output. That means that, by definition, the aggregate amount of data that it's trained on will be representative of the "average" solution to any problem. This doesn't mean that I can always do better, but I wouldn't assume that what AI will give me would be "good." Most developers I speak with who are using CoPilot and ChatGPT tell me that they always examine the output and have to "massage" it a little. But I don't see it jiving with my workflow, specifically. In any case, if people find it useful then great! What works for others will not always be what works for me and vice versa.