6 ms·

Jevon's Paradox says that you're probably wrong. But I'm worried about the same thing. The moat around human superiority is shrinking fast. And when it's gone,

by btilly 2y ago

Jevon's Paradox says that you're probably wrong. But I'm worried about the same thing. The moat around human superiority is shrinking fast. And when it's gone, we may get more software, but will we need humans involved?

bubbleRefuge 2y ago
this is a better world. we can work a few hours a week and play tennis, golf, and argue politics with our friends and family over some good cheese and wine while the bots do the deployments.
- the_af 2y ago
  Assuming you retain a good paying job and are not treated like a disposable commodity. That cheese and wine is not going to be free.
  - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
    as long as we keep learning and our heads in the game we will be fine. I worry much more for the non-techno savy like scrum masters. yikes.
- hgomersall 2y ago
  We're already there in terms of productivity. The problem is the inordinate number of people doing nothing useful yet extracting huge amounts. Think most of finance for example.
  - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
    oh. yeah. finance is to big. they've captured the government.
svara 2y ago
AI doesn't have needs any desires, humans do. And no matter how hyped one might be about AI, we're far away from creating an artificial human. As long as that's true, AI is a tool to make humans more effective.
- boothby 2y ago
  > AI doesn't have needs any desires, humans do. I fear that this won't age well. But to shamelessly riff on Marx, those who control the means of computation will control society.
  - visarga 2y ago
    In the AI age, those who own the problems stand to own the AI benefits. Utility is in the application layer, not the hosting or development of AI models.
  - svara 2y ago
    I agree the latter part is a risk to consider, but I really think getting an AI to replace human jobs on a vast scale will take much more than just training a bit more. You need to train on a fundamentally different task, which is to be good at the adversarial game of pursuing one's needs and desires in a social environment. And that doesn't yet take into account that the interface to our lives is largely physical, we need bodies. I'm seeing us on track to AGI in the sense of building a universal question answering machine, a system that will be able to answer any unambiguously stated question if given enough time and energy. Stating questions unambiguously gets pretty difficult fast even where it's possible, often it isn't even possible, and getting those answers is just a small part of being a successful human. PS: Needs and desires are totally orthogonal to AI/AGI. Every animal has them, but many animals don't have high intelligence. Needs and desires are a consequence of our evolutionary history, not our intelligence. AGI does not need to mean an artificial human. Whether to pursue or not pursue that research program is up to us, it's not inevitable.
    - the_af 2y ago
      To be clear, I'm not arguing humans will stop being involved in software engineering completely. What I fear is that the pool of employable humans (as code reviewers, prompt engineers and high-level "solution architects") will shrink, because fewer will be needed, and that this will cause ripples in our industry and affect employment. We know this isn't far-fetched. We have strong evidence to suspect during the big layoffs of a couple of years ago, FAANG and startups all colluded to lower engineer salaries across the board, and that their excuse ("the economy is shrinking") was flimsy at best. Now AI presents them with another powerful tool to reduce salaries even more, with a side dish of reducing the size of the cost center that is programmers and engineers.
kelipso 2y ago
Can’t be sure though, there used to be way more accountants decades ago.

by btilly 2y ago

bubbleRefuge 2y ago

this is a better world. we can work a few hours a week and play tennis, golf, and argue politics with our friends and family over some good cheese and wine while the bots do the deployments.

the_af 2y ago
Assuming you retain a good paying job and are not treated like a disposable commodity. That cheese and wine is not going to be free.
- bubbleRefuge 2y ago
  as long as we keep learning and our heads in the game we will be fine. I worry much more for the non-techno savy like scrum masters. yikes.
hgomersall 2y ago
We're already there in terms of productivity. The problem is the inordinate number of people doing nothing useful yet extracting huge amounts. Think most of finance for example.
- bubbleRefuge 2y ago
  oh. yeah. finance is to big. they've captured the government.

svara 2y ago

AI doesn't have needs any desires, humans do. And no matter how hyped one might be about AI, we're far away from creating an artificial human. As long as that's true, AI is a tool to make humans more effective.

boothby 2y ago
> AI doesn't have needs any desires, humans do. I fear that this won't age well. But to shamelessly riff on Marx, those who control the means of computation will control society.
- visarga 2y ago
  In the AI age, those who own the problems stand to own the AI benefits. Utility is in the application layer, not the hosting or development of AI models.
- svara 2y ago
  I agree the latter part is a risk to consider, but I really think getting an AI to replace human jobs on a vast scale will take much more than just training a bit more. You need to train on a fundamentally different task, which is to be good at the adversarial game of pursuing one's needs and desires in a social environment. And that doesn't yet take into account that the interface to our lives is largely physical, we need bodies. I'm seeing us on track to AGI in the sense of building a universal question answering machine, a system that will be able to answer any unambiguously stated question if given enough time and energy. Stating questions unambiguously gets pretty difficult fast even where it's possible, often it isn't even possible, and getting those answers is just a small part of being a successful human. PS: Needs and desires are totally orthogonal to AI/AGI. Every animal has them, but many animals don't have high intelligence. Needs and desires are a consequence of our evolutionary history, not our intelligence. AGI does not need to mean an artificial human. Whether to pursue or not pursue that research program is up to us, it's not inevitable.
  - the_af 2y ago
    To be clear, I'm not arguing humans will stop being involved in software engineering completely. What I fear is that the pool of employable humans (as code reviewers, prompt engineers and high-level "solution architects") will shrink, because fewer will be needed, and that this will cause ripples in our industry and affect employment. We know this isn't far-fetched. We have strong evidence to suspect during the big layoffs of a couple of years ago, FAANG and startups all colluded to lower engineer salaries across the board, and that their excuse ("the economy is shrinking") was flimsy at best. Now AI presents them with another powerful tool to reduce salaries even more, with a side dish of reducing the size of the cost center that is programmers and engineers.

kelipso 2y ago

Can’t be sure though, there used to be way more accountants decades ago.