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> 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

> 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)
  - intended 2y ago
    I am almost certainly wrong, and we will find some solution, or sue the hell out of the genAI firms, but this is the economic issue I see. It competes with productivity as a core economic driver of human wellbeing: Concentration of wealth. GenAI consumes content, even that created in low resource languages and regions, and spits it back out, separating the creator from the traffic due to their labor. This isn’t entirely unknown - we’ve all been inspired by someone else stuff and copied our own. Now, genAi firms have inserted themselves into this loop. And they’re cutting out the creator. The scaled, automated pseudo workers that these firms promise, are owned by the firms. The productivity they create accrues to a small group of foreign multi nationals. Economically - this shouldn’t be an issue. More productivity, means more capability of people doing newer work. I do expect this to happen. However firms are also very good at making sure they capture the greater share of the market.
dividedbyzero 2y ago
That researcher probably wouldn't have an army of SWEs at his or her disposal but be out of a job like the SWEs. If they get AI to a point where it can be a safe and competent senior SWE, it'll be able to fill a huge breadth of other roles as well. Human creativity isn't looking like quite the moat it was supposed to be. Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majority of working-age people out of work, possibly for good, nor are we in any way ready for the kind of power certain tech billionaires would have if their workforce were to scale with just the amount of hardware they own. At this point I kind of hope the current breed of AIs will plateau quickly and stay there for a while so that maybe society can catch up instead of getting surprise bulldozed by a gaggle of tech giants.
- cudgy 2y ago
  Question I have is if no one has any job because it’s been replaced by AI, what happens to the economy?
  - blibble 2y ago
    essentially it would be the end of employment and return to feudalism likely followed by either a French Revolution (if lucky) or a Russian Revolution (if not)
    - cudgy 2y ago
      Of what use are the peasants in an AI driven and dominated feudal society, though. Maybe us peasants be useful in wars or battles between the different lords, but this would also probably be performed by automated drones and robots. It would seem that the Lord‘s will have nothing to Lord over though. Who’s gonna buy their crap and for what reason will they they create anything? The whole thing seems like a massive doom spiral.
      - DaleMgrh 2y ago
        https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria

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)
- intended 2y ago
  I am almost certainly wrong, and we will find some solution, or sue the hell out of the genAI firms, but this is the economic issue I see. It competes with productivity as a core economic driver of human wellbeing: Concentration of wealth. GenAI consumes content, even that created in low resource languages and regions, and spits it back out, separating the creator from the traffic due to their labor. This isn’t entirely unknown - we’ve all been inspired by someone else stuff and copied our own. Now, genAi firms have inserted themselves into this loop. And they’re cutting out the creator. The scaled, automated pseudo workers that these firms promise, are owned by the firms. The productivity they create accrues to a small group of foreign multi nationals. Economically - this shouldn’t be an issue. More productivity, means more capability of people doing newer work. I do expect this to happen. However firms are also very good at making sure they capture the greater share of the market.

dividedbyzero 2y ago

That researcher probably wouldn't have an army of SWEs at his or her disposal but be out of a job like the SWEs. If they get AI to a point where it can be a safe and competent senior SWE, it'll be able to fill a huge breadth of other roles as well. Human creativity isn't looking like quite the moat it was supposed to be. Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majority of working-age people out of work, possibly for good, nor are we in any way ready for the kind of power certain tech billionaires would have if their workforce were to scale with just the amount of hardware they own. At this point I kind of hope the current breed of AIs will plateau quickly and stay there for a while so that maybe society can catch up instead of getting surprise bulldozed by a gaggle of tech giants.

cudgy 2y ago
Question I have is if no one has any job because it’s been replaced by AI, what happens to the economy?
- blibble 2y ago
  essentially it would be the end of employment and return to feudalism likely followed by either a French Revolution (if lucky) or a Russian Revolution (if not)
  - cudgy 2y ago
    Of what use are the peasants in an AI driven and dominated feudal society, though. Maybe us peasants be useful in wars or battles between the different lords, but this would also probably be performed by automated drones and robots. It would seem that the Lord‘s will have nothing to Lord over though. Who’s gonna buy their crap and for what reason will they they create anything? The whole thing seems like a massive doom spiral.
    - DaleMgrh 2y ago
      https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria