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I can't even summarize how much GPT4x has helped me teach myself engineering skills over the past two years. It can help me accomplish highly specific and nuanc

I can't even summarize how much GPT4x has helped me teach myself engineering skills over the past two years. It can help me accomplish highly specific and nuanced things in CAD, plan interactions between component parts (which it helped me decide) on PCBs that it helps me to lay out, figure out how to optimize everything from switching regulators to preparing for EM certification. And I could say this about just about every domain of my life. I've trained myself to ask it about everything that poses a question or a challenge, from creating recipes to caring for my indoor Japanese maple tree to preparing for difficult conversations and negotiations. The idea of "just" using it to compose emails or search for things seems frustrating to me, even reading about it. It's actually very hard for me to capture all of this in a way that doesn't sound like I'm insulting the folks who aren't there yet. I'm not blindly accepting everything it says. I am highly technical and I think competent enough to understand when I need to push back against obvious or likely hallucinations. I would never hand its plans to a contractor and say "build this". It's more like having an extra, incredibly intuitive person who just happens to contain the sum of most human knowledge at the table, for $20 a month. I honestly don't understand how the folks reading HN don't intuitively and passionately lean into that. It's a freaking superpower.

SoftTalker 2y ago
> I honestly don't understand how the folks reading HN don't intuitively and passionately lean into that. It's a freaking superpower. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. Many of us here would see our jobs eliminated by a sufficiently powerful AI, perhaps some have already experienced it. You might as well. If you use AI so much, what value do you really provide and how much longer before the AI can surpass you at that?
- peteforde 2y ago
  Only time will tell. In the meantime, I am not losing any sleep. There's a lot of people in technical roles who chose to study programming and work at tech companies because it seemed like it would pay more than other roles. My own calculation is that the tech-but-could-have-just-as-easily-been-a-lawyer cohort will be the first to find themselves replaced. Is that a revealing a bias? Absolutely. Actual hackers, in the true sense, will have no trouble finding ways to continue to be useful and hopefully well compensated.
- hyperG 2y ago
  Maybe because my salary doesn't depend on any of this that I think this whole framing is science fiction. A calculator needs direction on what to calculate because the machine doesn't have agency. We are going to a higher level of abstraction and at that higher level you probably need a different skill set than before. Humans aren't going to get cut out of the loop but you always have to level up your skills. I think there is just a generation of tech workers that got lazy and thought they were immune to change some how. I didn't even know anyone that had been on the internet when I graduated high school. Someone older and wiser though told me I would have to constantly reinvent myself, always learn new skills and will have several different careers. They were so spot on. Guess what? Nothing has changed.
  - peteforde 2y ago
    If we ever find each other IRL, I suspect that we will be fast friends. A tip of my hat to you, sir/ma'am.
hyperG 2y ago
I suspect many people are simply not that intellectually curious about the world. It a super power for the intellectually curious while the highly specialized that thought they were done learning can only see the threat to their intellectual moat. They aren't wrong. I feel like I level up on a weekly basis practically.
- peteforde 2y ago
  YESssss I feel like this has become one of the most taboo things to even wonder about out loud, because it drives a different part of the Venn diagram into a freaking rage. How dare you force me to consider that perhaps I am only slightly above average in a population of billions?

SoftTalker 2y ago

> I honestly don't understand how the folks reading HN don't intuitively and passionately lean into that. It's a freaking superpower. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. Many of us here would see our jobs eliminated by a sufficiently powerful AI, perhaps some have already experienced it. You might as well. If you use AI so much, what value do you really provide and how much longer before the AI can surpass you at that?

peteforde 2y ago
Only time will tell. In the meantime, I am not losing any sleep. There's a lot of people in technical roles who chose to study programming and work at tech companies because it seemed like it would pay more than other roles. My own calculation is that the tech-but-could-have-just-as-easily-been-a-lawyer cohort will be the first to find themselves replaced. Is that a revealing a bias? Absolutely. Actual hackers, in the true sense, will have no trouble finding ways to continue to be useful and hopefully well compensated.
hyperG 2y ago
Maybe because my salary doesn't depend on any of this that I think this whole framing is science fiction. A calculator needs direction on what to calculate because the machine doesn't have agency. We are going to a higher level of abstraction and at that higher level you probably need a different skill set than before. Humans aren't going to get cut out of the loop but you always have to level up your skills. I think there is just a generation of tech workers that got lazy and thought they were immune to change some how. I didn't even know anyone that had been on the internet when I graduated high school. Someone older and wiser though told me I would have to constantly reinvent myself, always learn new skills and will have several different careers. They were so spot on. Guess what? Nothing has changed.
- peteforde 2y ago
  If we ever find each other IRL, I suspect that we will be fast friends. A tip of my hat to you, sir/ma'am.

hyperG 2y ago

I suspect many people are simply not that intellectually curious about the world. It a super power for the intellectually curious while the highly specialized that thought they were done learning can only see the threat to their intellectual moat. They aren't wrong. I feel like I level up on a weekly basis practically.

peteforde 2y ago
YESssss I feel like this has become one of the most taboo things to even wonder about out loud, because it drives a different part of the Venn diagram into a freaking rage. How dare you force me to consider that perhaps I am only slightly above average in a population of billions?