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So much this, when you see Zuck or even Jensen Huang saying "software engineers won't be needed anymore" and being excited about it you get pissed off as a soft

So much this, when you see Zuck or even Jensen Huang saying "software engineers won't be needed anymore" and being excited about it you get pissed off as a software engineer lol. I feel like Microsoft's whole thing with Windows 11 has been "just force the users to do what we want them to do, we know better than they do" so it doesn't surprise me that 365 went the same way. I'm saying this and I'm a person that's usually extremely enthusiastic about new tech, but I'm just burnt out on these companies trying to shove AI down our throats. Had it been opt-in and gradual, I would be far more optimistic and enthusiastic. I guess my question is "why such a rush?". Even Apple rushed into it with something half-baked and unfinished.

codeduck 2y ago
> why such a rush First mover / Fear of missing out. Frankly, inclusion of "AI" in a tool is a great way to ensure I don't use it.
marcosdumay 2y ago
> why such a rush? OpenAI alone spent $20G plus some unknown value to make the first version of it we have now. They and all the others need to justify the investment.
- aninteger 2y ago
  Pretty impressive, only $20 grand?
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    $20 grand^3. Forgot the ^3.
  - DaleMgrh 2y ago
    $20GIGA, not grand.
  - rat9988 2y ago
    I wonder why he uses custom units. Who the hell speaks in G$.
  - Clubber 2y ago
    GAZILLION!
edm0nd 2y ago
>I feel like Microsoft's whole thing with Windows 11 has been "just force the users to do what we want them to do, we know better than they do" My biggest gripe about Win11 is they stole from us the ability to move the task bar. It can ONLY be pinned to the bottom of the screen now. For the longest time, I was a top of the screen taskbar user. From what I've read, they have no plans to implement or change this "feature".
- jachee 2y ago
  That and the fact that it will brick my $600 HP Reverb G2 headset are two reasons that I will never ever “upgrade” to Win11.
  - cudgy 2y ago
    Microsoft not the only one.Mac OS upgrades effectively brick their own hardware. I’ve got a beautiful 27 inch iMac with a retina screen 5k … unusable now on last 2 OS updates.
    - jachee 2y ago
      Unusable? I still use my 27” 2011 iMac. Other than performing like a 14-year-old computer, it still does everything it ever could.
      - cudgy 2y ago
        Except develop apps for the Apple platform. Or use any of the new features of the Apple macOS. Or soon receive any security updates.
        LeFantome 2y ago
        Well, unless you use LegacyPatcher of course.
        cudgy 2y ago
BoorishBears 2y ago
> you get pissed off as a software engineer lol I think this part depends on the person. I've personally been programming since I was a kid making games for my TI-83+, and in all that time and fatigue have been the limiting factors in how much of what I wanted to build that I actually could build. So something able to write code rigorously enough to replace SWEs would be an absolute dream! I love programming with all my heart, and it's the thing I've spent most of my life doing... but I feel in love with it because it could make things. A way to make even more things at a greater scale I'm individually capable off is such a joyous idea that if anything, I get annoyed at the idea they'd tease that without knowing it's possible (of course, they're trying to raise so...) The aspect of wanting to replace SWEs is completely ok with me and I think there should be a rush to see it through. Imagine if every researcher could have an army of top tier SWEs at their beck and call for example. Or even imagine learning to program alongside a personal world-class expert from day 1, after all the fact AI could do it wouldn't mean we couldn't still do it ourselves if we wanted to. - Unlike the "AGI in 3 years crowd" I don't actually know that it's possible, but where I agree with them is that the route there is probably not going to be a slow burn. Most companies need to demonstrate some external value along the way or they won't be able to continue, hence the chasing down of usecases that they can ship today. Unfortunately not all of us can raise $1B on a txt file and a promise not to release our product :)
- arvinsim 2y ago
  I would guess that the pushback is more about the possible economic imbalance that will happen and less about being replaced on the actual effort of coding.
  - BoorishBears 2y ago
    Maybe because I'm not originally from this country my view is different, but I think the fact the majority of the world's increase in population is about to happen in extremely poor places that will be subject to the worst of climate change means that the AI will have to be immensely powerful to actually increase worse imbalances than we're already headed for. So powerful that it'd also raise the floor on quality of life for the 8 billion people on earth almost with ease, even if its owners stayed deeply profit/power motivated. After all, it's not like the tech bros will get to make money by hoarding the AI and it's fruits after all. They need to apply to downstream tasks to actually cash in on its value. They could hoard the AI itself, but if OpenAI was suddenly able to break into every industry with a tireless AI army of top engineers and researchers they'd still be be producing real advancements for the world. (and to be clear that's closer the worst timelines where AI advances so greatly. I think the more realistically we'd seem competition lead to something much closer to widespread advancements rather than some singular superpower emerging)
dreamcompiler 2y ago
> So much this, when you see Zuck or even Jensen Huang saying "software engineers won't be needed anymore" and being excited about it you get pissed off as a software engineer lol. The real story nobody is saying out loud is that CEOs are much more replaceable by AI than are software engineers.
- BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
  Exactly zero management or executive positions at my workplace have had the “can an AI do this?” exercise intended to explore ways of reducing headcount.
- eddythompson80 2y ago
  > The real story nobody is saying out loud is that CEOs are much more replaceable by AI than are software engineers. Sorry, but that’s not true at all. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Who is replacing the CEO of a company with AI? The board? The board doesn’t want/can’t run the company. They will hire someone to “run the CEO AI”? Won’t that just be a CEO using AI? Maybe that makes it so the CEO is paid less Because now they just run OpenCEOv4? I don’t see it happening though. Also a very large portion of the day to day of CEO level execs at those big companies interpersonal and/or performative. You won’t be replacing that with AI anytime soon. You still need a face of it at the end of the day.
  - re-thc 2y ago
    > You still need a face of it at the end of the day. Wasn't that the whole point of AI generated images / video?
    - eddythompson80 2y ago
      No? That makes no sense.
  - conartist6 2y ago
    Lets say that CEOs are no more or less replaceable with AI than all the other jobs. Throwing away all the humans to replace them with AIs is a move only an AI CEO would make, because and AI couldn't give less of a shit if something it does blows up in its face. Well, apparently real CEOs couldn't care less either. Imagining you're going to run a successful software organization (once you've hollowed out the people who both understand the work and actually give a shit about it) is insane. These people know that it will blow up, but they hope that it is only after they can rake in their bonus pay for the mounds of short term profits that result form layoffs, after which they'll float away under their golden parachutes leaving their former companies to collapse under the weight of institutionalized incompetence.
conductr 2y ago
My thought has been they are forcing it knowing nobody, as in 98% of people, would give a crap about most of the AI features. People have been using these tools for decades now to solve their problems and there's a lot of muscle memory to overcome even if the 'new way' were in fact better. I myself have found I only adopt new software, and techniques (including things like using/learning keyboard shortcuts, etc), that's a minimum of 2X better/faster than my de facto personal preference or legacy approach of tackling the problem. And, even if >10X, if it's something I do infrequent I still won't be interested in changing my ways. I have a lot of muscle memory that goes into how I build something like a new spreadsheet, even complicated ones. I'm not interested in putting AI into that process. I have a grandfather that actually took an early retirement package, age 55, specifically because company gave him an ultimatum regarding switching from typewriter to a PC in the 80s. I feel like AI is pushing me towards making that same choice, I don't really care for using it in my work specifically (have no ultimatum at present). I use it sparsely and it's more of a toy/novelty to me. Although, I do see how it helps other fields more/less and could replace humans in some professions - I'm not a SWE.
maxmcorp 2y ago
Well, it is not software developers that won't be needed anymore. It is large corporations. If a small team of developers can make huge projects. There is no reason for them to work for a large business.
zwolf24 2y ago
[dead]

codeduck 2y ago

> why such a rush First mover / Fear of missing out. Frankly, inclusion of "AI" in a tool is a great way to ensure I don't use it.

marcosdumay 2y ago

> why such a rush? OpenAI alone spent $20G plus some unknown value to make the first version of it we have now. They and all the others need to justify the investment.

aninteger 2y ago
Pretty impressive, only $20 grand?
- Nevermark 2y ago
  $20 grand^3. Forgot the ^3.
- DaleMgrh 2y ago
  $20GIGA, not grand.
- rat9988 2y ago
  I wonder why he uses custom units. Who the hell speaks in G$.
- Clubber 2y ago
  GAZILLION!

edm0nd 2y ago

>I feel like Microsoft's whole thing with Windows 11 has been "just force the users to do what we want them to do, we know better than they do" My biggest gripe about Win11 is they stole from us the ability to move the task bar. It can ONLY be pinned to the bottom of the screen now. For the longest time, I was a top of the screen taskbar user. From what I've read, they have no plans to implement or change this "feature".

jachee 2y ago
That and the fact that it will brick my $600 HP Reverb G2 headset are two reasons that I will never ever “upgrade” to Win11.
- cudgy 2y ago
  Microsoft not the only one.Mac OS upgrades effectively brick their own hardware. I’ve got a beautiful 27 inch iMac with a retina screen 5k … unusable now on last 2 OS updates.
  - jachee 2y ago
    Unusable? I still use my 27” 2011 iMac. Other than performing like a 14-year-old computer, it still does everything it ever could.
    - cudgy 2y ago
      Except develop apps for the Apple platform. Or use any of the new features of the Apple macOS. Or soon receive any security updates.
      - LeFantome 2y ago
        Well, unless you use LegacyPatcher of course.
        cudgy 2y ago

BoorishBears 2y ago

> you get pissed off as a software engineer lol I think this part depends on the person. I've personally been programming since I was a kid making games for my TI-83+, and in all that time and fatigue have been the limiting factors in how much of what I wanted to build that I actually could build. So something able to write code rigorously enough to replace SWEs would be an absolute dream! I love programming with all my heart, and it's the thing I've spent most of my life doing... but I feel in love with it because it could make things. A way to make even more things at a greater scale I'm individually capable off is such a joyous idea that if anything, I get annoyed at the idea they'd tease that without knowing it's possible (of course, they're trying to raise so...) The aspect of wanting to replace SWEs is completely ok with me and I think there should be a rush to see it through. Imagine if every researcher could have an army of top tier SWEs at their beck and call for example. Or even imagine learning to program alongside a personal world-class expert from day 1, after all the fact AI could do it wouldn't mean we couldn't still do it ourselves if we wanted to. - Unlike the "AGI in 3 years crowd" I don't actually know that it's possible, but where I agree with them is that the route there is probably not going to be a slow burn. Most companies need to demonstrate some external value along the way or they won't be able to continue, hence the chasing down of usecases that they can ship today. Unfortunately not all of us can raise $1B on a txt file and a promise not to release our product :)

arvinsim 2y ago
I would guess that the pushback is more about the possible economic imbalance that will happen and less about being replaced on the actual effort of coding.
- BoorishBears 2y ago
  Maybe because I'm not originally from this country my view is different, but I think the fact the majority of the world's increase in population is about to happen in extremely poor places that will be subject to the worst of climate change means that the AI will have to be immensely powerful to actually increase worse imbalances than we're already headed for. So powerful that it'd also raise the floor on quality of life for the 8 billion people on earth almost with ease, even if its owners stayed deeply profit/power motivated. After all, it's not like the tech bros will get to make money by hoarding the AI and it's fruits after all. They need to apply to downstream tasks to actually cash in on its value. They could hoard the AI itself, but if OpenAI was suddenly able to break into every industry with a tireless AI army of top engineers and researchers they'd still be be producing real advancements for the world. (and to be clear that's closer the worst timelines where AI advances so greatly. I think the more realistically we'd seem competition lead to something much closer to widespread advancements rather than some singular superpower emerging)

dreamcompiler 2y ago

> So much this, when you see Zuck or even Jensen Huang saying "software engineers won't be needed anymore" and being excited about it you get pissed off as a software engineer lol. The real story nobody is saying out loud is that CEOs are much more replaceable by AI than are software engineers.

BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
Exactly zero management or executive positions at my workplace have had the “can an AI do this?” exercise intended to explore ways of reducing headcount.
eddythompson80 2y ago
> The real story nobody is saying out loud is that CEOs are much more replaceable by AI than are software engineers. Sorry, but that’s not true at all. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Who is replacing the CEO of a company with AI? The board? The board doesn’t want/can’t run the company. They will hire someone to “run the CEO AI”? Won’t that just be a CEO using AI? Maybe that makes it so the CEO is paid less Because now they just run OpenCEOv4? I don’t see it happening though. Also a very large portion of the day to day of CEO level execs at those big companies interpersonal and/or performative. You won’t be replacing that with AI anytime soon. You still need a face of it at the end of the day.
- re-thc 2y ago
  > You still need a face of it at the end of the day. Wasn't that the whole point of AI generated images / video?
  - eddythompson80 2y ago
    No? That makes no sense.
- conartist6 2y ago
  Lets say that CEOs are no more or less replaceable with AI than all the other jobs. Throwing away all the humans to replace them with AIs is a move only an AI CEO would make, because and AI couldn't give less of a shit if something it does blows up in its face. Well, apparently real CEOs couldn't care less either. Imagining you're going to run a successful software organization (once you've hollowed out the people who both understand the work and actually give a shit about it) is insane. These people know that it will blow up, but they hope that it is only after they can rake in their bonus pay for the mounds of short term profits that result form layoffs, after which they'll float away under their golden parachutes leaving their former companies to collapse under the weight of institutionalized incompetence.

conductr 2y ago

My thought has been they are forcing it knowing nobody, as in 98% of people, would give a crap about most of the AI features. People have been using these tools for decades now to solve their problems and there's a lot of muscle memory to overcome even if the 'new way' were in fact better. I myself have found I only adopt new software, and techniques (including things like using/learning keyboard shortcuts, etc), that's a minimum of 2X better/faster than my de facto personal preference or legacy approach of tackling the problem. And, even if >10X, if it's something I do infrequent I still won't be interested in changing my ways. I have a lot of muscle memory that goes into how I build something like a new spreadsheet, even complicated ones. I'm not interested in putting AI into that process. I have a grandfather that actually took an early retirement package, age 55, specifically because company gave him an ultimatum regarding switching from typewriter to a PC in the 80s. I feel like AI is pushing me towards making that same choice, I don't really care for using it in my work specifically (have no ultimatum at present). I use it sparsely and it's more of a toy/novelty to me. Although, I do see how it helps other fields more/less and could replace humans in some professions - I'm not a SWE.

maxmcorp 2y ago

Well, it is not software developers that won't be needed anymore. It is large corporations. If a small team of developers can make huge projects. There is no reason for them to work for a large business.

zwolf24 2y ago

[dead]