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I spoke to a CTO of a firm doing relatively cookie-cutter work (custom software for things like waste management). They were able to lay off a significant porti

by blagie 2y ago

I spoke to a CTO of a firm doing relatively cookie-cutter work (custom software for things like waste management). They were able to lay off a significant portion of their workforce due to AI. I think it's eating in more at the bottom-end of coding right now. It definitely makes me more productive in high-end, by more than what I'd call marginal, but not by enough that it's risking jobs. However, the article, and my comment, were more general than coding. The impact is different industry-by-industry, from zero to very high.

delfinom 2y ago
Yea, I really don't believe that's true. More than likely it was the rose tinted glasses he wore. It just means the remaining engineers had to work harder. AI helps you generate boilerplate, that you still have to check because it will fuck up. It doesn't do entire projects for you.
- blagie 2y ago
  He described specific functions which AI mostly took over. Those tended to focus on things like developing test cases, where before they had a test team. I didn't pick up that the people on that team were particularly impressive. I would guess someone still had to check their work because they would fuck it up. I'm not sure how AI is worse.
  - ch4s3 2y ago
    Interesting, that sounds like a way out of a bad staffing and leadership trap rather than any big productivity gains. But it is something I guess.
    - blagie 2y ago
      I think it's a little bit different. When I was in tech, I had a set of bars of quality for employees: 1. Google (keeping in mind early Google was much more selective than today 2. Elite schools / HN 3. Typical tech When I worked for a non-tech, I learned that there are about a dozen rungs below that. The ladder runs very deep. I was surprised at just how incompetent people were if you stepped into almost any company outside of tech. I am guessing there is no way I could hire you (a random HN'er) to make custom software for some waste management firm, but they need someone to do it. It's not particular complex or interesting, but it's stuff which needs to get done. That's actually a huge part of the industry. On a prior thread, someone asked how IBM makes their money. The pieces I've seen are based on contracting out this sort of boring but very necessary work from a place that's completely incompetent in tech (random big non-tech firm) to one which is only moderately incompetent (IBM).
      - ch4s3 2y ago
        My suspicion is that there are uses for technical tasks where a proper software developer is unavailable or the accounting math doesn't work where Gen-Ai would be useful. I'd really like to see how someone puts something like that together and how it functions in a business.

by blagie 2y ago

delfinom 2y ago

Yea, I really don't believe that's true. More than likely it was the rose tinted glasses he wore. It just means the remaining engineers had to work harder. AI helps you generate boilerplate, that you still have to check because it will fuck up. It doesn't do entire projects for you.

blagie 2y ago
He described specific functions which AI mostly took over. Those tended to focus on things like developing test cases, where before they had a test team. I didn't pick up that the people on that team were particularly impressive. I would guess someone still had to check their work because they would fuck it up. I'm not sure how AI is worse.
- ch4s3 2y ago
  Interesting, that sounds like a way out of a bad staffing and leadership trap rather than any big productivity gains. But it is something I guess.
  - blagie 2y ago
    I think it's a little bit different. When I was in tech, I had a set of bars of quality for employees: 1. Google (keeping in mind early Google was much more selective than today 2. Elite schools / HN 3. Typical tech When I worked for a non-tech, I learned that there are about a dozen rungs below that. The ladder runs very deep. I was surprised at just how incompetent people were if you stepped into almost any company outside of tech. I am guessing there is no way I could hire you (a random HN'er) to make custom software for some waste management firm, but they need someone to do it. It's not particular complex or interesting, but it's stuff which needs to get done. That's actually a huge part of the industry. On a prior thread, someone asked how IBM makes their money. The pieces I've seen are based on contracting out this sort of boring but very necessary work from a place that's completely incompetent in tech (random big non-tech firm) to one which is only moderately incompetent (IBM).
    - ch4s3 2y ago
      My suspicion is that there are uses for technical tasks where a proper software developer is unavailable or the accounting math doesn't work where Gen-Ai would be useful. I'd really like to see how someone puts something like that together and how it functions in a business.