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“Copilot puts the human at the center of the creative work that is software development. AI helps with the things you don’t want to do, so you have more time fo

“Copilot puts the human at the center of the creative work that is software development. AI helps with the things you don’t want to do, so you have more time for the things you do.” … until we train our model on your usage data and totally replace you

threatofrain 2y ago
If we actually could get to a world where programmers can be replaced, we'll also likely find that vast swathes of the population will be replaced. Then we'll need a totally new conversation on how society should look. That conversation is coming no matter what, because there will not be a global consensus to stop ML development, esp. on the war front.
- johnfn 2y ago
  In a world where programmers can be replaced, it's less clear to me that plumbers, janitors, electricians, construction laborers, etc, are also all out of a job.
  - reducesuffering 2y ago
    Think secondary effects. What does a world in which almost every programmer can be automated look like? It looks like massive extremely fast technological development, how to build and program robotics will be solved almost instantly. With solved robotics goes every other labor. We don't get the same current X productivity with 1/100th the people. We get 100x productivity, controlled by a few people / megacorps, until they lose control of it too.
    - johnfn 2y ago
      I still don't see it. I think for quite a while replacing a single engineer will be costly and resource-intensive. I think many companies would be happy to replace all programmers with AI that are just as slow as programmers, but marginally cheaper. That doesn't mean that we'll suddenly have massive extremely fast technological development.
  - suyash 2y ago
    Here is a saying that I really think summarises "AI will replace white-collar jobs and Robotics will replace blue-collar jobs".
    - post-it 2y ago
      Yeah, but it doesn't look like there's been much progress on the robotics front.
      - throw83288 2y ago
        Until reasoner AI 10x's research and solves it far ahead of schedule. You don't even need robotics, just a good multi-modal reasoner model with domain knowledge that you can attach to a headset manna-style [0]. The only thing that makes blue collar work different from any minimum wage labor is the System 2 reasoning required, and that'll get solved. [0] https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
        post-it 2y ago
        Also, you know, muscle memory. The idea that you could slap a headset on a rando and just walk them through doing a trade is ludicrous. It's a great teaching tool, but you can't use it to replace a trade worker real-time.
        semi-extrinsic 2y ago
        It sounds like you've never used a welding torch, installed a kitchen sink, or done similar blue collar work. These jobs will never be replaced by robots, or by a non-trained person wearing a headset.
        azan_ 2y ago
        > It sounds like you've never used a welding torch, installed a kitchen sink, or done similar blue collar work. These jobs will never be replaced by robots, or by a non-trained person wearing a headset. Why do you think they will never be replaced by robots?
- gokhan 2y ago
  As a programmer, I think it's easier to replace programmers than many other occupations. We work with generic DSLs called programming languages, which can be easily handled by AI. Most of what we produce can be easily parsed by an AI. We work in small, incremental tasks which is perfect for AI. Most of us use the same set of tools. What else? UI is similar everywhere, especially in LoB apps. What we produce is repetitive, most of us practically doing clever meshups of the code on the Internet. Thank Crom I'm old. But I'm worried for my kids.
  - machine_ghost 2y ago
    In the long run, yes, but if programming were so rote and simple, we all wouldn't have jobs in the first place. Look, technology has always replaced jobs, throughout history (how many of you know professional lamp lighters, elevator doormen, or switchboard operators?) But the thing is, tech has always replaced the jobs that are easiest to automate ... not the "intellectual work". I would be far more worried about being a real estate agent, food preparer, or heck, even a lawyer (for some specialties at least). I think they're all at more risk than programmers.
    - myth_drannon 2y ago
      real estate agents, lawyers are all licensed professionals... they will not be replaced but possibly these professions will be overcrowded.
  - ericmcer 2y ago
    Doing the small incremental tasks is the easiest part of programming. All the complexity lies in taking giant specs and breaking it into manageable goals and then small tasks. AI is still pretty far from doing that, but I agree, I would not want to be a teenager right now and face the prospect of entering the workforce after 10 years more of progress. Unless work is a thing of the past by then, and we were the last generation of suckers who lived under the reality where 40hrs/week was just the way life is.
  - balls187 2y ago
    "The report of my death was an exaggeration." - Mark Twain. I don't see it as "replacing programmers" but rather, trying to solve the types of problems that programmers solve, but more cheaply. I'm not sure your age relative to mine, but I got my start a hair breath after 9-11 in the defense industry. I've experienced the "tectonic" shifts in programming since that time. In each case, Programmers seemed to shift away from the work that was being done more cheaply, to work that require more specialization that was harder to be done. I see the promise of AI as a threat to my job, but the reality is likely more like what happened with automobiles vs horses. Less horse shoe makers, more car mechanics. Some day, I may be too tired and too dumb to become a mechanic. But today is not that day.
- bluerooibos 2y ago
  I mean this is literally happening as we speak - the process has started and it's accelerating. Governments need to be talking about this like yesterday, and very few are from what I'm seeing. AI companies and others using AI are going to profit from this massively, at the expense of many more. We need a better tax system to redistribute these profits across society as a whole. The issue is capitalism but AI exploding is going to exacerbate wealth inequality like nothing else.
shaneofalltrad 2y ago
If they don't, it will be Cursor, Trae, Cline, Roo Code or Goose? Seems this is coming this year in a big way regardless if Copilot does it or not. I'm guessing we all have to pivot how we work or get left behind?
rvz 2y ago
They are not hiding it anymore and are testing as to how much they can get away with total job displacement. First artists, then musicians, then writers and now programmers. Better prepare for 2030 then as I am already doing so [0]. But from this year and in the next 5 years I'd also read this very carefully [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42563239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42563239 [1] https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/ https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-repo...
- JohnnyMarcone 2y ago
  Care to share how you are preparing?
  - baq 2y ago
    Save as much money as possible and start tinkering with hardware is my approach. Not sure if the right move isn’t tinkering with water and sewage pipes at this point…
    - myth_drannon 2y ago
      Every second programmer is considering moving to trades.
hirako2000 2y ago
More time for the things I do? All AI tools I've used turned my daily into fighting the agent. While LLMs can save time on tedious repetitive tasks, they are atrocities in producing bug free code. Even if they reached 99.999% accuracy without, they wouldn't be worth it: If I wrote a function and it turns out buggy, I can, even months later, investigate and find the culprit. If an LLM introduces a bug, I would rather scrap everything. That is, every piece of code the thing produced for a given project. If my boss tells me my job is to provide a patch, I quit. And, LLMs have proven so far that they can't produce innovative solutions.
- makerdiety 2y ago
  If LLMs could produce innovative solutions, they wouldn't be large language models. They'd be valuable and indispensable software engineers to covet instead. Don't you agree that having a free artificial junior developer at your beck and call is better than not having freely and quickly produced code that can help point you into the direction your engineering needs to go in? As a senior developer, don't you also fight with managing your subordinates? Don't you have to solve the management problem and do leadership tasks? As a senior developer, don't you also have to deal with code that is not bug free, as you yourself don't always produce bug free code? Especially on the first try. Maybe your approach to LLMs is wrong? Maybe you expect one shot solutions when that is not how LLMs are supposed to be used? Instead, you could invest in working with this new tool and then see phenomenal productivity gains. And also maybe grow a new capability in software development with the use of LLMs in your engineering.
  - hirako2000 2y ago
    I wouldn't agree to call any of that a developer, adding junior to the term doesn't move the needle. I wouldn't call a calculator a mini accountant. These things can operate much faster than an army of mathematicians but they remain tools. Of course l, tools humans can leverage. Productivity gains are phenomenal. Perhaps my input to the topic wasn't clear. I use LLMs. I use LLMs in the context of software engineering. I don't treat them as my peers. I don't dream of a future where this tech can solve more than its often misunderstood scope. We are letting ourselves be confused by those who do have an interest in, or can't do better than, up selling. Engineers are already having to deal with very difficult to reconcile side effects. Maybe you aren't seeing it yet, or your comment would have at least recognized and touched on those.
amelius 2y ago
If they really put the human at the center then they'd contribute back and publish the weights so that we can run this locally and build our own AIs on top, etc.

threatofrain 2y ago

If we actually could get to a world where programmers can be replaced, we'll also likely find that vast swathes of the population will be replaced. Then we'll need a totally new conversation on how society should look. That conversation is coming no matter what, because there will not be a global consensus to stop ML development, esp. on the war front.

johnfn 2y ago
In a world where programmers can be replaced, it's less clear to me that plumbers, janitors, electricians, construction laborers, etc, are also all out of a job.
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  Think secondary effects. What does a world in which almost every programmer can be automated look like? It looks like massive extremely fast technological development, how to build and program robotics will be solved almost instantly. With solved robotics goes every other labor. We don't get the same current X productivity with 1/100th the people. We get 100x productivity, controlled by a few people / megacorps, until they lose control of it too.
  - johnfn 2y ago
    I still don't see it. I think for quite a while replacing a single engineer will be costly and resource-intensive. I think many companies would be happy to replace all programmers with AI that are just as slow as programmers, but marginally cheaper. That doesn't mean that we'll suddenly have massive extremely fast technological development.
- suyash 2y ago
  Here is a saying that I really think summarises "AI will replace white-collar jobs and Robotics will replace blue-collar jobs".
  - post-it 2y ago
    Yeah, but it doesn't look like there's been much progress on the robotics front.
    - throw83288 2y ago
      Until reasoner AI 10x's research and solves it far ahead of schedule. You don't even need robotics, just a good multi-modal reasoner model with domain knowledge that you can attach to a headset manna-style [0]. The only thing that makes blue collar work different from any minimum wage labor is the System 2 reasoning required, and that'll get solved. [0] https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
      - post-it 2y ago
        Also, you know, muscle memory. The idea that you could slap a headset on a rando and just walk them through doing a trade is ludicrous. It's a great teaching tool, but you can't use it to replace a trade worker real-time.
      - semi-extrinsic 2y ago
        It sounds like you've never used a welding torch, installed a kitchen sink, or done similar blue collar work. These jobs will never be replaced by robots, or by a non-trained person wearing a headset.
        azan_ 2y ago
        > It sounds like you've never used a welding torch, installed a kitchen sink, or done similar blue collar work. These jobs will never be replaced by robots, or by a non-trained person wearing a headset. Why do you think they will never be replaced by robots?
gokhan 2y ago
As a programmer, I think it's easier to replace programmers than many other occupations. We work with generic DSLs called programming languages, which can be easily handled by AI. Most of what we produce can be easily parsed by an AI. We work in small, incremental tasks which is perfect for AI. Most of us use the same set of tools. What else? UI is similar everywhere, especially in LoB apps. What we produce is repetitive, most of us practically doing clever meshups of the code on the Internet. Thank Crom I'm old. But I'm worried for my kids.
- machine_ghost 2y ago
  In the long run, yes, but if programming were so rote and simple, we all wouldn't have jobs in the first place. Look, technology has always replaced jobs, throughout history (how many of you know professional lamp lighters, elevator doormen, or switchboard operators?) But the thing is, tech has always replaced the jobs that are easiest to automate ... not the "intellectual work". I would be far more worried about being a real estate agent, food preparer, or heck, even a lawyer (for some specialties at least). I think they're all at more risk than programmers.
  - myth_drannon 2y ago
    real estate agents, lawyers are all licensed professionals... they will not be replaced but possibly these professions will be overcrowded.
- ericmcer 2y ago
  Doing the small incremental tasks is the easiest part of programming. All the complexity lies in taking giant specs and breaking it into manageable goals and then small tasks. AI is still pretty far from doing that, but I agree, I would not want to be a teenager right now and face the prospect of entering the workforce after 10 years more of progress. Unless work is a thing of the past by then, and we were the last generation of suckers who lived under the reality where 40hrs/week was just the way life is.
- balls187 2y ago
  "The report of my death was an exaggeration." - Mark Twain. I don't see it as "replacing programmers" but rather, trying to solve the types of problems that programmers solve, but more cheaply. I'm not sure your age relative to mine, but I got my start a hair breath after 9-11 in the defense industry. I've experienced the "tectonic" shifts in programming since that time. In each case, Programmers seemed to shift away from the work that was being done more cheaply, to work that require more specialization that was harder to be done. I see the promise of AI as a threat to my job, but the reality is likely more like what happened with automobiles vs horses. Less horse shoe makers, more car mechanics. Some day, I may be too tired and too dumb to become a mechanic. But today is not that day.
bluerooibos 2y ago
I mean this is literally happening as we speak - the process has started and it's accelerating. Governments need to be talking about this like yesterday, and very few are from what I'm seeing. AI companies and others using AI are going to profit from this massively, at the expense of many more. We need a better tax system to redistribute these profits across society as a whole. The issue is capitalism but AI exploding is going to exacerbate wealth inequality like nothing else.

shaneofalltrad 2y ago

If they don't, it will be Cursor, Trae, Cline, Roo Code or Goose? Seems this is coming this year in a big way regardless if Copilot does it or not. I'm guessing we all have to pivot how we work or get left behind?

rvz 2y ago

They are not hiding it anymore and are testing as to how much they can get away with total job displacement. First artists, then musicians, then writers and now programmers. Better prepare for 2030 then as I am already doing so [0]. But from this year and in the next 5 years I'd also read this very carefully [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42563239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42563239 [1] https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/ https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-repo...

JohnnyMarcone 2y ago
Care to share how you are preparing?
- baq 2y ago
  Save as much money as possible and start tinkering with hardware is my approach. Not sure if the right move isn’t tinkering with water and sewage pipes at this point…
  - myth_drannon 2y ago
    Every second programmer is considering moving to trades.

hirako2000 2y ago

More time for the things I do? All AI tools I've used turned my daily into fighting the agent. While LLMs can save time on tedious repetitive tasks, they are atrocities in producing bug free code. Even if they reached 99.999% accuracy without, they wouldn't be worth it: If I wrote a function and it turns out buggy, I can, even months later, investigate and find the culprit. If an LLM introduces a bug, I would rather scrap everything. That is, every piece of code the thing produced for a given project. If my boss tells me my job is to provide a patch, I quit. And, LLMs have proven so far that they can't produce innovative solutions.

makerdiety 2y ago
If LLMs could produce innovative solutions, they wouldn't be large language models. They'd be valuable and indispensable software engineers to covet instead. Don't you agree that having a free artificial junior developer at your beck and call is better than not having freely and quickly produced code that can help point you into the direction your engineering needs to go in? As a senior developer, don't you also fight with managing your subordinates? Don't you have to solve the management problem and do leadership tasks? As a senior developer, don't you also have to deal with code that is not bug free, as you yourself don't always produce bug free code? Especially on the first try. Maybe your approach to LLMs is wrong? Maybe you expect one shot solutions when that is not how LLMs are supposed to be used? Instead, you could invest in working with this new tool and then see phenomenal productivity gains. And also maybe grow a new capability in software development with the use of LLMs in your engineering.
- hirako2000 2y ago
  I wouldn't agree to call any of that a developer, adding junior to the term doesn't move the needle. I wouldn't call a calculator a mini accountant. These things can operate much faster than an army of mathematicians but they remain tools. Of course l, tools humans can leverage. Productivity gains are phenomenal. Perhaps my input to the topic wasn't clear. I use LLMs. I use LLMs in the context of software engineering. I don't treat them as my peers. I don't dream of a future where this tech can solve more than its often misunderstood scope. We are letting ourselves be confused by those who do have an interest in, or can't do better than, up selling. Engineers are already having to deal with very difficult to reconcile side effects. Maybe you aren't seeing it yet, or your comment would have at least recognized and touched on those.

amelius 2y ago

If they really put the human at the center then they'd contribute back and publish the weights so that we can run this locally and build our own AIs on top, etc.