5 ms·

I mean yeah if you're making $80/hr writing marketing noise then your job was always insecure

ftxbro 4y ago
Imagine how many other jobs you can say almost that same thing. 'Oh you were getting paid to look at text or jpeg or video files and write something about them into a text or excel file or email? It was always known that your job would be automated soon. Pretty irresponsible of you to not plan for it.'
- likeabbas 4y ago
  There's plenty of "engineers" whose job is to update some trivial frontend code or similar that will be automated away. I think software engineer salaries are about to tank really quick.
  - ramesh31 4y ago
    Do not equate "frontend" with "trivial". Huge mistake.
    - likeabbas 4y ago
      It's just an example. There's plenty of backend "engineers" who don't really engineer anything. This all leads back to a conversation one of my professors talked about. In other engineering professions, you need to be licensed by the state. Software "Engineers" don't have this license, so anyone can go to bootcamp and become one. I think if we changed this, then we would be able to differentiate software engineers from simple developers and that would help engineers maintain their status above chatGPT for a while longer.
      - ramesh31 4y ago
        100%. The vast majority of folks labelled as an "engineer" these days couldn't integrate x^2. But software is a different beast than bridges or power lines. It takes a creative streak that goes beyond that. And math is not the great filter in the same way it is for those disciplines. I don't think credentialism is the answer. But perhaps something more along the lines of trade licensing.
      - throwaway675309 4y ago
        As a developer with a masters in computer science, I absolutely think that there should be a CS equivalent of a PE exam specifically for accredited software engineering. It's one of the biggest reasons that coding interviews are such a train wreck, because of the incredible disparity of competence between potential applicants.
      - jb3689 4y ago
        > In other engineering professions, you need to be licensed by the state. Software "Engineers" don't have this license, so anyone can go to bootcamp and become one. Academic achievements and actual work experiences are already sufficient here in-practice. I don’t think certifications would be as impactful as you might hope
    - dmreedy 4y ago
      Do not equate "conversational natural language" with "trivial" either. We've been working on that one a lot longer than frontend.
peruvian 4y ago
This is the kind of attitude that makes many hate tech workers.
- rcme 4y ago
  Why? I think the emphasis was on “marketing noise,” i.e. something no one wants or needs that is forced into peoples’ eyeballs against their will through paid advertising channels.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    And what do all the so-called elites that work at FAANG do?
    - rcme 4y ago
      People at Amazon, Apple, and Netflix do sell products (although they also have advertising divisions).
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - McAtNite 4y ago
      Make the channels that those ads are pushed through. Both are fundamentally negative for people in the long run, but I think the superiority complex comes from the naive idea that if you’re the place the garbage is sent to then it’s somehow better. There’s probably a lot of TV execs who felt the same way.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    So like, 100% of the ultimate source of income for tech workers.
  - kethinov 4y ago
    There is a perception among the broader public that techies want to automate all the jobs away and don't really care what the people displaced do to earn a living afterward. Bland, inadequate platitudes thrown out advising people to just go find a marketable skill in the new economy ignore the fact that the number of potential occupations that you can make a decent living doing has been shrinking for decades. If you're not a programmer, a doctor, or possess some other rare skill, you're fucked. And of course the whole point of a marketable skill is that it's only marketable because other people don't have it. At some point we're going to have to go through the stages of grief as a society and accept that it's unsustainable to deny a middle class lifestyle to anyone who doesn't possess rare skills, especially when the list of skills considered rare shrinks decade after decade thanks to automation. A continuously growing underclass with continuously declining prospects is a recipe for violence and revolution if we don't start taking this problem more seriously. There are many possible answers. Universal basic income gets thrown around a lot. I like that idea, but I think it needs to be paired with wage subsidies for low wage jobs too. If basically every job is on the path to becoming low wage some day, we have to regard that as the market failure that it is and stop letting the market near-unilaterally decide the price of labor.
chaxor 4y ago
You just push bits around from one place to another all day? Man, better get prepared to be replaced
- morkalork 4y ago
  Hey now, not only do I push bits, I fiddle with em too!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
icehawk 4y ago
That's pretty rudely dismissive, and doesn't really add anything substantial to this conversation. $80/hr is a pretty decent salary full time, so if people are finding chatgpt a reasonable alternative salaried office work isn't far behind here.
athinggoingon 4y ago
Once tech companies can no longer cover negative cash flow with "funding", persistent tech unemployment will be reality.

Imagine how many other jobs you can say almost that same thing. 'Oh you were getting paid to look at text or jpeg or video files and write something about them into a text or excel file or email? It was always known that your job would be automated soon. Pretty irresponsible of you to not plan for it.'

likeabbas 4y ago
There's plenty of "engineers" whose job is to update some trivial frontend code or similar that will be automated away. I think software engineer salaries are about to tank really quick.
- ramesh31 4y ago
  Do not equate "frontend" with "trivial". Huge mistake.
  - likeabbas 4y ago
    It's just an example. There's plenty of backend "engineers" who don't really engineer anything. This all leads back to a conversation one of my professors talked about. In other engineering professions, you need to be licensed by the state. Software "Engineers" don't have this license, so anyone can go to bootcamp and become one. I think if we changed this, then we would be able to differentiate software engineers from simple developers and that would help engineers maintain their status above chatGPT for a while longer.
    - ramesh31 4y ago
      100%. The vast majority of folks labelled as an "engineer" these days couldn't integrate x^2. But software is a different beast than bridges or power lines. It takes a creative streak that goes beyond that. And math is not the great filter in the same way it is for those disciplines. I don't think credentialism is the answer. But perhaps something more along the lines of trade licensing.
    - throwaway675309 4y ago
      As a developer with a masters in computer science, I absolutely think that there should be a CS equivalent of a PE exam specifically for accredited software engineering. It's one of the biggest reasons that coding interviews are such a train wreck, because of the incredible disparity of competence between potential applicants.
    - jb3689 4y ago
      > In other engineering professions, you need to be licensed by the state. Software "Engineers" don't have this license, so anyone can go to bootcamp and become one. Academic achievements and actual work experiences are already sufficient here in-practice. I don’t think certifications would be as impactful as you might hope
  - dmreedy 4y ago
    Do not equate "conversational natural language" with "trivial" either. We've been working on that one a lot longer than frontend.

peruvian 4y ago

This is the kind of attitude that makes many hate tech workers.

rcme 4y ago
Why? I think the emphasis was on “marketing noise,” i.e. something no one wants or needs that is forced into peoples’ eyeballs against their will through paid advertising channels.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  And what do all the so-called elites that work at FAANG do?
  - rcme 4y ago
    People at Amazon, Apple, and Netflix do sell products (although they also have advertising divisions).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - McAtNite 4y ago
    Make the channels that those ads are pushed through. Both are fundamentally negative for people in the long run, but I think the superiority complex comes from the naive idea that if you’re the place the garbage is sent to then it’s somehow better. There’s probably a lot of TV execs who felt the same way.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  So like, 100% of the ultimate source of income for tech workers.
- kethinov 4y ago
  There is a perception among the broader public that techies want to automate all the jobs away and don't really care what the people displaced do to earn a living afterward. Bland, inadequate platitudes thrown out advising people to just go find a marketable skill in the new economy ignore the fact that the number of potential occupations that you can make a decent living doing has been shrinking for decades. If you're not a programmer, a doctor, or possess some other rare skill, you're fucked. And of course the whole point of a marketable skill is that it's only marketable because other people don't have it. At some point we're going to have to go through the stages of grief as a society and accept that it's unsustainable to deny a middle class lifestyle to anyone who doesn't possess rare skills, especially when the list of skills considered rare shrinks decade after decade thanks to automation. A continuously growing underclass with continuously declining prospects is a recipe for violence and revolution if we don't start taking this problem more seriously. There are many possible answers. Universal basic income gets thrown around a lot. I like that idea, but I think it needs to be paired with wage subsidies for low wage jobs too. If basically every job is on the path to becoming low wage some day, we have to regard that as the market failure that it is and stop letting the market near-unilaterally decide the price of labor.

chaxor 4y ago

You just push bits around from one place to another all day? Man, better get prepared to be replaced

morkalork 4y ago
Hey now, not only do I push bits, I fiddle with em too!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

icehawk 4y ago

That's pretty rudely dismissive, and doesn't really add anything substantial to this conversation. $80/hr is a pretty decent salary full time, so if people are finding chatgpt a reasonable alternative salaried office work isn't far behind here.

athinggoingon 4y ago

Once tech companies can no longer cover negative cash flow with "funding", persistent tech unemployment will be reality.