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Well, I am older than this chap and I don't feel old because of AI. In fact, I love what's happening with coding and AI. It's like having a wonderful buddy who

Well, I am older than this chap and I don't feel old because of AI. In fact, I love what's happening with coding and AI. It's like having a wonderful buddy who programs with me. It takes away the drudgery of some tasks and shows me new things. I get to learn from the AI systems. Now, imagine that AIs start replacing more and more of what I do, then I'll have more and more time to think of what I want built and not have to spend so much time on building it. Sounds brilliant to me. And when I want to I can turn away from the AI tools and handcraft something. For the pleasure of it.

KingOfCoders 3y ago
(author here) As I wrote "AI is amazing. I’ve trained an AI to detect model railroad locomotives and their types. I’m a daily user of AI to let it write code for me." But AI will take away all coding. Sure, some people will write code, like some people today use a mechanical typewriter. Like some artists use clay. But most of what happens in computers in the future will not be code but executed, self modifying, self optimizing, AI models. "more and more time to think of what I want build" This is not how AI will work. It's not I want something to build, the AI will just do the things. There will no longer be things to "build". We will no longer think of code as something that exists, but things that just happen. You will say "But I could tell the AI what film to create, and some scenes, and a rough story, and it will create that film" - but what if AI creates much better, more powerful, exciting, better films than those you could imagine? Films no human ever thought about? Again, like the typewriter, some people will tell the AI fragments of a story to create a film. But most media content will be created by AI, for consumptions, on the initiative of AIs, not on the initiative of humans. In the mid 90s I wrote a philosophy paper at university about an AI that generates random images (trigger by my first digital camera, a Olympus C-800L) and then interprets them (making some estimations on the speed it could do that, generation and interpretation). That AI has basically seen it all, an alien killing JFK, me on the moon, you and me drinking a beer, and things we could never imagine. [Edit] Like there people writing new games for 8bit computers today. They exist, but it's a niche.
- metabagel 3y ago
  > But AI will take away all coding. I feel like the time frame for this is 20+ years out. It feels premature to mourn the end of coding, although we can sense it coming in the medium future. It’s not too soon to start planning how society should handle the radical changes in employment due to AI. It seems like that is where our focus should be.
  - tommiegannert 3y ago
    Imagine the 2038 problem being solved by computers themselves! "I've upgraded your database schema for you, Dave. It was about to create problems for you, but you're safe now."
    - KingOfCoders 3y ago
      Star Trek has no database schema. Neither has HAL. That is the point.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  You're making a lot of assumptions and predictions there. Not to say that you're wrong, but we don't yet know if you're right. My opinion is that we're seeing the shape of the limitations of these LLMs. I use them a lot for coding, it's a sea change. But you still have to understand what you're doing, they don't produce accurate code all the time, and I'm not convinced they'll be able to just insert working code into existing complex systems. > but what if AI creates much better, more powerful, exciting, better films than those you could imagine? Well, something to deal with when it can. Right now it cannot do this.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    Everything about the future is based on assumptions. Nevertheless we talk about the future.
    - jemmyw 3y ago
nunez 3y ago
> Now, imagine that AIs start replacing more and more of what I do, then I'll have more and more time to think of what I want built and not have to spend so much time on building it. Sounds brilliant to me. Now imagine a person who just spent four years studying CS who's looking for a job after graduating college. This is what they're competing with.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

(author here) As I wrote "AI is amazing. I’ve trained an AI to detect model railroad locomotives and their types. I’m a daily user of AI to let it write code for me." But AI will take away all coding. Sure, some people will write code, like some people today use a mechanical typewriter. Like some artists use clay. But most of what happens in computers in the future will not be code but executed, self modifying, self optimizing, AI models. "more and more time to think of what I want build" This is not how AI will work. It's not I want something to build, the AI will just do the things. There will no longer be things to "build". We will no longer think of code as something that exists, but things that just happen. You will say "But I could tell the AI what film to create, and some scenes, and a rough story, and it will create that film" - but what if AI creates much better, more powerful, exciting, better films than those you could imagine? Films no human ever thought about? Again, like the typewriter, some people will tell the AI fragments of a story to create a film. But most media content will be created by AI, for consumptions, on the initiative of AIs, not on the initiative of humans. In the mid 90s I wrote a philosophy paper at university about an AI that generates random images (trigger by my first digital camera, a Olympus C-800L) and then interprets them (making some estimations on the speed it could do that, generation and interpretation). That AI has basically seen it all, an alien killing JFK, me on the moon, you and me drinking a beer, and things we could never imagine. [Edit] Like there people writing new games for 8bit computers today. They exist, but it's a niche.

metabagel 3y ago
> But AI will take away all coding. I feel like the time frame for this is 20+ years out. It feels premature to mourn the end of coding, although we can sense it coming in the medium future. It’s not too soon to start planning how society should handle the radical changes in employment due to AI. It seems like that is where our focus should be.
- tommiegannert 3y ago
  Imagine the 2038 problem being solved by computers themselves! "I've upgraded your database schema for you, Dave. It was about to create problems for you, but you're safe now."
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    Star Trek has no database schema. Neither has HAL. That is the point.
jemmyw 3y ago
You're making a lot of assumptions and predictions there. Not to say that you're wrong, but we don't yet know if you're right. My opinion is that we're seeing the shape of the limitations of these LLMs. I use them a lot for coding, it's a sea change. But you still have to understand what you're doing, they don't produce accurate code all the time, and I'm not convinced they'll be able to just insert working code into existing complex systems. > but what if AI creates much better, more powerful, exciting, better films than those you could imagine? Well, something to deal with when it can. Right now it cannot do this.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  Everything about the future is based on assumptions. Nevertheless we talk about the future.
  - jemmyw 3y ago

nunez 3y ago

> Now, imagine that AIs start replacing more and more of what I do, then I'll have more and more time to think of what I want built and not have to spend so much time on building it. Sounds brilliant to me. Now imagine a person who just spent four years studying CS who's looking for a job after graduating college. This is what they're competing with.