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AI Discourse Is Talentless Business Students Trying to Give Young Engineers PTSD

30 points by furrball010 3y ago

furrball010 3y ago
Fun read for those frustrated with LinkedIn posts, not super informative per se ;)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
olesya1979 3y ago
[dead]
dexwiz 3y ago
I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of costs to serve for AI before I start freaking out. Maybe a super AI could replace an engineering org, but how much will it cost? Developer wages are already being depressed by off-shoring. The era of the $300k/yr app dev is over. AI companies can burn cash to acquire customers for one off prompts. But what happens when you are severing multiple prompts a minute? You are going to want to charge by usage instead of monthly. Will this be cheaper than a human? Maybe. Probably not if there another major disruption to the chip supply chain. Also AI demos really well for basic problems with lots of examples on the internet. Anyone who has used LLMs for niche domains knows that its not as reliable. I think this means Business Students are impressed since they use problems they learned in class, for which they are many example solutions. Worse even are the demos of AI "correcting" itself.
- foxyv 3y ago
  Remember when AI and robots were going to replace fast food workers? Still hasn't happened. It's because they cost WAY more than the workers themselves. Although I think Logo designers are going to be in a world of hurt. At least until people get tired of the same re-hashed AI logos.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    they were already in a world of hurt; fiverr ate their lunch. bespoke, all-in marketing, still had a use for these guys, but they could get some Filipino guy to do the design for $5 overnight
sandspar 3y ago
I've lately been seeing a more frequent use of "business students" and "MBAs" as a slur. It's disappointing to see it on Hacker News as well. Slurring people with terms like "Karens" and "boomers" and "MBAs" seems better suited to low discourse places like Reddit. I had thought that Hacker News was more fair. Also, the post itself seems born of a dark worldview. A single paragraph contains the following words: narrative, dead, scary, insecure, problematic. It depicts an author who has a dark worldview and who uses dehumanizing slurs for other people. I find it disturbing.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  everyone gets old. boomers didnt choose when they were born, and they can't change that. same for a lot of things like skin color. MBAs required a lot of choices, on-going, regular choices, to get that degree. conscious choices, that cost non-trivial amounts of money. you chose to be there, and you can suck it up and take (some often deserved) flak for it.
- anotherhue 3y ago
  You're not wrong, but I think you're not acknowledging the underlying truth to these claims. By and large, the desire to obtain an MBA and move into a management-consultancy/thought-leadership type role is directly connected to a preference to avoid doing hard, meaningful work and preferring instead to operate one layer above a grift. People who choose this path are explicitly saying they wish to operate as your superior, and your work product is theirs to dispense with as their vision decrees. I doubt there's any new human behaviour at play here, but it does seem to be more encouraged/accepted to be a quasi-parasite than it used to be. On the flip side they're not wrong, hard work doesn't pay. Hate the game?
  - nunez 3y ago
    > By and large, the desire to obtain an MBA and move into a management-consultancy/thought-leadership type role is directly connected to a preference to avoid doing hard, meaningful work and preferring instead to operate one layer above a grift. or it's an answer to a desire for non-engineers to make more money, which these programs definitely open doors to.
anotherhue 3y ago
Headline of the year.
nunez 3y ago
> For example, in my second AI related publication, we used BERT to collect evidence in the legal discovery process. Typically, such tasks are done by legal interns that are forced to go through thousands of emails (if not more) one-by-one to find evidence that could potentially be used in a case. Hence my point, a robotic task that's done by a human But that's exactly the problem. Boring legal discovery and case prep is a huge part of the intern experience. Will removing this result in fewer lawyers? You know that partners will be more than happy to have smaller cohorts if it saves the firm money. Remains to be seen.

30 points by furrball010 3y ago

furrball010 3y ago

Fun read for those frustrated with LinkedIn posts, not super informative per se ;)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

olesya1979 3y ago

[dead]

dexwiz 3y ago

I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of costs to serve for AI before I start freaking out. Maybe a super AI could replace an engineering org, but how much will it cost? Developer wages are already being depressed by off-shoring. The era of the $300k/yr app dev is over. AI companies can burn cash to acquire customers for one off prompts. But what happens when you are severing multiple prompts a minute? You are going to want to charge by usage instead of monthly. Will this be cheaper than a human? Maybe. Probably not if there another major disruption to the chip supply chain. Also AI demos really well for basic problems with lots of examples on the internet. Anyone who has used LLMs for niche domains knows that its not as reliable. I think this means Business Students are impressed since they use problems they learned in class, for which they are many example solutions. Worse even are the demos of AI "correcting" itself.

foxyv 3y ago
Remember when AI and robots were going to replace fast food workers? Still hasn't happened. It's because they cost WAY more than the workers themselves. Although I think Logo designers are going to be in a world of hurt. At least until people get tired of the same re-hashed AI logos.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  they were already in a world of hurt; fiverr ate their lunch. bespoke, all-in marketing, still had a use for these guys, but they could get some Filipino guy to do the design for $5 overnight

sandspar 3y ago

I've lately been seeing a more frequent use of "business students" and "MBAs" as a slur. It's disappointing to see it on Hacker News as well. Slurring people with terms like "Karens" and "boomers" and "MBAs" seems better suited to low discourse places like Reddit. I had thought that Hacker News was more fair. Also, the post itself seems born of a dark worldview. A single paragraph contains the following words: narrative, dead, scary, insecure, problematic. It depicts an author who has a dark worldview and who uses dehumanizing slurs for other people. I find it disturbing.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
everyone gets old. boomers didnt choose when they were born, and they can't change that. same for a lot of things like skin color. MBAs required a lot of choices, on-going, regular choices, to get that degree. conscious choices, that cost non-trivial amounts of money. you chose to be there, and you can suck it up and take (some often deserved) flak for it.
anotherhue 3y ago
You're not wrong, but I think you're not acknowledging the underlying truth to these claims. By and large, the desire to obtain an MBA and move into a management-consultancy/thought-leadership type role is directly connected to a preference to avoid doing hard, meaningful work and preferring instead to operate one layer above a grift. People who choose this path are explicitly saying they wish to operate as your superior, and your work product is theirs to dispense with as their vision decrees. I doubt there's any new human behaviour at play here, but it does seem to be more encouraged/accepted to be a quasi-parasite than it used to be. On the flip side they're not wrong, hard work doesn't pay. Hate the game?
- nunez 3y ago
  > By and large, the desire to obtain an MBA and move into a management-consultancy/thought-leadership type role is directly connected to a preference to avoid doing hard, meaningful work and preferring instead to operate one layer above a grift. or it's an answer to a desire for non-engineers to make more money, which these programs definitely open doors to.

anotherhue 3y ago

Headline of the year.

nunez 3y ago

> For example, in my second AI related publication, we used BERT to collect evidence in the legal discovery process. Typically, such tasks are done by legal interns that are forced to go through thousands of emails (if not more) one-by-one to find evidence that could potentially be used in a case. Hence my point, a robotic task that's done by a human But that's exactly the problem. Boring legal discovery and case prep is a huge part of the intern experience. Will removing this result in fewer lawyers? You know that partners will be more than happy to have smaller cohorts if it saves the firm money. Remains to be seen.