6 ms·

Given that the paper disappoints, I'd love to hear what fellow HN readers do to prepare? My prep is: 1) building a company (https://getdot.ai https://getdot.a

by zurfer 2y ago

Given that the paper disappoints, I'd love to hear what fellow HN readers do to prepare? My prep is: 1) building a company (https://getdot.ai https://getdot.ai) that I think will add significant marginal benefits over using products from AI labs / TAI, ASI. 2) investing in the chip manufacturing supply chain: from ASML, NVDA, TSMC, ... and SnP 500. 3) Staying fit and healthy, so physical labour stays possible.

bob1029 2y ago
I'd say #3 is most important. I'd also add: 4) Develop an obsession for the customers & their experiences around your products. I find it quite rare to see developers interacting directly with the customer. Stepping outside the comfort zone of backend code can grow you in ways the AI will not soon overtake. #3 can make working with the customer a lot easier too. Whether or not we like it, there are certain realities that exist around sales/marketing and how we physically present ourselves.
petesergeant 2y ago
4) trying to position myself as an expert in building these systems
- smeeger 2y ago
  [flagged]
ghfhghg 2y ago
2 has worked pretty well for me so far. I try to do 3 as much as possible. My current work explicitly forbids me from doing 1. Currently just figuring out the timing to leave.
sfn42 2y ago
Nothing. I don't think there's anything I need to prepare for. AI can't do my job and I doubt it will any time soon. Developers who think AI will replace them must be miserable at their job lol. At best AI will be a tool I use while developing software. For now I don't even think it's very good at that.
- rybosworld 2y ago
  Imagine two software engineers. One believes the following: > AI can't do my job and I doubt it will any time soon The other believes the opposite; that AI is improving rapidly enough that their job is in danger "soon". From a game theory stance, is there any advantage to holding the first belief over the second?
  - sfn42 2y ago
    Yeah. The engineer who thinks their job is in danger might be less inclined to improve their skills because they don't think their skills will be useful in the future, which is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe they will pursue some other career or start preparing for it, which might be a complete waste of time. Similarly, non-engineers might choose a different profession entirely. Meanwhile the engineer who isn't bothered by this bullshit prophecy goes about their day, making lots of money and becoming less replaceable every day. Maybe they learn to use these AI tools to be more efficient, which is really the only realistic endgame of AI tools anyway. You don't just fire all the devs and have some manager do the prompting. Maybe you fire some devs and keep the best ones as prompt engineers. Maybe this isn't even a management-driven process at all, maybe the developers just start using these tools of their own volition, become more productive and everyone's happy. It's not like we're running out of development work any time soon, whenever we meet a goal they set a new one. Being able to move faster doesn't necessarily mean we need fewer developers. Setting aside hypotheticals and game theory, it's completely unrealistic to expect that software developer suddenly won't be a job any more. If it even happens it will be a slow, gradual process. The people working as software developers today will be prime candidates for using AI tools to create software. You still need to understand what you're doing, what's possible and what isn't etc. There is absolutely no reality where some business person just tells an AI to make a banking system and it does that perfectly without any human intervention.
- zurfer 2y ago
  It's not certain that we get TAI or ASI, but if we get it, it will be better at software development than us. The question is which probability do you assign to getting TAI over time? From your comment it seems you say 0 percent in your career. For me it's between 20 to 80 percent in the next ten years ( depending on the day :)
energy123 2y ago
> 2) investing in the chip manufacturing The only thing I see as obvious is AI is going to generate tremendous wealth. But it's not clear who's going to capture that wealth. Broad categories: (1) chip companies (NVDA etc) (2) model creators (OpenAI etc) (3) application layer (YC and Andrew Ng's investments) (4) end users (main street, eg ChatGPT subscribers) (5) rentiers (land and resource ownership) The first two are driving the revolution, but competition may not allow them to make profits. The third might be eaten by the second. The fourth might be eaten by second, but it could also turn out that competition amongst the second, and the fourth's access to consumers and supply chains means that they net benefit. The fifth seems to have the least volatile upside. As the cost of goods and services goes to $0 due to automation, scarce goods will inflate.
- impossiblefork 2y ago
  To me it's pretty obvious that the answer (5). It substitutes for human labour. This will reduce the price and substantially increase the benefits of land and resource ownership.
smeeger 2y ago
i think if AI gains the ability to reason, introspect and self-improve (AGI) then the situation will become very serious very quickly. AGI will be a very new and powerful technology and AGI will immediately create/unlock lots of other new technologies that change the world in very fundamental ways. what people dont appreciate is that this will completely invalidate the current military/economic/geopolitical equilibrium. it will create a very deep, multidimensional power vacuum. the most likely result will be a global war waged by AGI-led and augmented militaries. and this war will be fought in the context of human labor having, for the first time in history, zero strategic, political or economic value. so, new and terrifying possibilities will be on the table such as the total collateral destruction of the atmosphere or supply chains that humans depend on to stay alive. the failure of all kinds of human-centric infrastructure is basically a foregone conclusion regardless of what you think. so my prep is simply to have a “bunker” with lots of food and equipment with the goal of isolating myself as much as possible from societal/supply chain instability. this is good because its good to be prepared for this kind of thing even without the prospect of AGI looming overhead because supply chains are very fragile things. and in the case of AGI, it would allow you to die in a relatively comfortable and controlled manner compared to the people who burn to death.

by zurfer 2y ago

bob1029 2y ago

I'd say #3 is most important. I'd also add: 4) Develop an obsession for the customers & their experiences around your products. I find it quite rare to see developers interacting directly with the customer. Stepping outside the comfort zone of backend code can grow you in ways the AI will not soon overtake. #3 can make working with the customer a lot easier too. Whether or not we like it, there are certain realities that exist around sales/marketing and how we physically present ourselves.

petesergeant 2y ago

4) trying to position myself as an expert in building these systems

smeeger 2y ago
[flagged]

ghfhghg 2y ago

2 has worked pretty well for me so far. I try to do 3 as much as possible. My current work explicitly forbids me from doing 1. Currently just figuring out the timing to leave.

sfn42 2y ago

Nothing. I don't think there's anything I need to prepare for. AI can't do my job and I doubt it will any time soon. Developers who think AI will replace them must be miserable at their job lol. At best AI will be a tool I use while developing software. For now I don't even think it's very good at that.

rybosworld 2y ago
Imagine two software engineers. One believes the following: > AI can't do my job and I doubt it will any time soon The other believes the opposite; that AI is improving rapidly enough that their job is in danger "soon". From a game theory stance, is there any advantage to holding the first belief over the second?
- sfn42 2y ago
  Yeah. The engineer who thinks their job is in danger might be less inclined to improve their skills because they don't think their skills will be useful in the future, which is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe they will pursue some other career or start preparing for it, which might be a complete waste of time. Similarly, non-engineers might choose a different profession entirely. Meanwhile the engineer who isn't bothered by this bullshit prophecy goes about their day, making lots of money and becoming less replaceable every day. Maybe they learn to use these AI tools to be more efficient, which is really the only realistic endgame of AI tools anyway. You don't just fire all the devs and have some manager do the prompting. Maybe you fire some devs and keep the best ones as prompt engineers. Maybe this isn't even a management-driven process at all, maybe the developers just start using these tools of their own volition, become more productive and everyone's happy. It's not like we're running out of development work any time soon, whenever we meet a goal they set a new one. Being able to move faster doesn't necessarily mean we need fewer developers. Setting aside hypotheticals and game theory, it's completely unrealistic to expect that software developer suddenly won't be a job any more. If it even happens it will be a slow, gradual process. The people working as software developers today will be prime candidates for using AI tools to create software. You still need to understand what you're doing, what's possible and what isn't etc. There is absolutely no reality where some business person just tells an AI to make a banking system and it does that perfectly without any human intervention.
zurfer 2y ago
It's not certain that we get TAI or ASI, but if we get it, it will be better at software development than us. The question is which probability do you assign to getting TAI over time? From your comment it seems you say 0 percent in your career. For me it's between 20 to 80 percent in the next ten years ( depending on the day :)

energy123 2y ago

> 2) investing in the chip manufacturing The only thing I see as obvious is AI is going to generate tremendous wealth. But it's not clear who's going to capture that wealth. Broad categories: (1) chip companies (NVDA etc) (2) model creators (OpenAI etc) (3) application layer (YC and Andrew Ng's investments) (4) end users (main street, eg ChatGPT subscribers) (5) rentiers (land and resource ownership) The first two are driving the revolution, but competition may not allow them to make profits. The third might be eaten by the second. The fourth might be eaten by second, but it could also turn out that competition amongst the second, and the fourth's access to consumers and supply chains means that they net benefit. The fifth seems to have the least volatile upside. As the cost of goods and services goes to $0 due to automation, scarce goods will inflate.

impossiblefork 2y ago
To me it's pretty obvious that the answer (5). It substitutes for human labour. This will reduce the price and substantially increase the benefits of land and resource ownership.

smeeger 2y ago

i think if AI gains the ability to reason, introspect and self-improve (AGI) then the situation will become very serious very quickly. AGI will be a very new and powerful technology and AGI will immediately create/unlock lots of other new technologies that change the world in very fundamental ways. what people dont appreciate is that this will completely invalidate the current military/economic/geopolitical equilibrium. it will create a very deep, multidimensional power vacuum. the most likely result will be a global war waged by AGI-led and augmented militaries. and this war will be fought in the context of human labor having, for the first time in history, zero strategic, political or economic value. so, new and terrifying possibilities will be on the table such as the total collateral destruction of the atmosphere or supply chains that humans depend on to stay alive. the failure of all kinds of human-centric infrastructure is basically a foregone conclusion regardless of what you think. so my prep is simply to have a “bunker” with lots of food and equipment with the goal of isolating myself as much as possible from societal/supply chain instability. this is good because its good to be prepared for this kind of thing even without the prospect of AGI looming overhead because supply chains are very fragile things. and in the case of AGI, it would allow you to die in a relatively comfortable and controlled manner compared to the people who burn to death.