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Are the gravy days of tech over? WFH, as much as I love it, has opened the eyes to more remote work. AI/ML tools means senior workers don't need as many intern

Are the gravy days of tech over? WFH, as much as I love it, has opened the eyes to more remote work. AI/ML tools means senior workers don't need as many interns to do tedious boilerplate work. AI/ML tools can also break down language barriers, and other things between companies and remote/foreign work. Of course, you still need experts and top talent if you're trying to be a market leader - but what about junior workers? Fresh grads? If these people have to compete against low-salaried competition from abroad AND AI/ML "assistants", what will their moat be? I've seen a lot of experienced workers dismiss the threats of cheaper competition and AI/ML, but juniors obviously do not have the same leverage... EDIT: And obviously the end of ZIRP means that startups etc. can't simply try to out-pay their (profitable and cash strong) competition, if they're not flush with investor money. I'm excited to see how the largest tech companies will set the course, when it comes to talent management and comp policies.

__loam 3y ago
We can hope the MBAs realize this AI stuff is crap, just like they did with outsourcing. Hopefully some of them also realize that investing in talent is good for the industry as a whole but I'm not holding my breath.
- elzbardico 3y ago
  Bad code in the long run leads to more positions. Someone will be needed to maintain all this crap. Legacy code rarely dies and the beast is always hungry. The problem is when GPT writes code that seem to work, have people ever really looked at the kind of unit tests it generate? It is convincing, lots of code, but stupid, idiot assertions everywhere, complete disregard for edge cases, terrible setups, the list is endless. But people get easily convinced. Most people seem to believe that GPT understands the code it generates.
visarga 3y ago
> AI/ML tools means senior workers don't need as many interns to do tedious boilerplate work. That works under the assumption that the demand for development remains the same. But in reality AI changes demand dramatically. We end up still needing everyone because we are aiming higher.

__loam 3y ago

We can hope the MBAs realize this AI stuff is crap, just like they did with outsourcing. Hopefully some of them also realize that investing in talent is good for the industry as a whole but I'm not holding my breath.

elzbardico 3y ago
Bad code in the long run leads to more positions. Someone will be needed to maintain all this crap. Legacy code rarely dies and the beast is always hungry. The problem is when GPT writes code that seem to work, have people ever really looked at the kind of unit tests it generate? It is convincing, lots of code, but stupid, idiot assertions everywhere, complete disregard for edge cases, terrible setups, the list is endless. But people get easily convinced. Most people seem to believe that GPT understands the code it generates.

visarga 3y ago

> AI/ML tools means senior workers don't need as many interns to do tedious boilerplate work. That works under the assumption that the demand for development remains the same. But in reality AI changes demand dramatically. We end up still needing everyone because we are aiming higher.