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I think that’s a question of how you define jobs. For example, I’ve worked with very few managers who could document their business processes in sufficient deta

by acdha 2y ago

I think that’s a question of how you define jobs. For example, I’ve worked with very few managers who could document their business processes in sufficient detail to build an app. Now, is the person who does a business analyst, architect, senior developer, etc.? Who sits down with the users, gets feedback, but understands the needs of multiple parties well enough to tell which points are traps, which should be developed in a different direction, etc.? Basically, I’m saying people should stop expecting to get six figures for being able to run create-react-app and deploy a container. The analytical and social parts of the job are where I predict LLMs to make fewer inroads because they require non-generic understanding.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
> I’m saying people should stop expecting to get six figures for being able to run create-react-app and deploy a container. The analytical and social parts of the job are where I predict LLMs to make fewer inroads because they require non-generic understanding. That's a fair take. I do wonder though, how much will those "analytical and social parts of the job" be paying - I imagine you might no longer get six figures for that either, because high tech salaries are fueled by absurd growth of the industry, which manifests in a large part in software that's basically just {framework du jour + basic-level CRUD, that hasn't changed much in 30 years + branding}, and that kind of software I expect to get eaten by LLMs entirely. Even with cookie-cutter app coders out of the way, the remaining software engineers might see the number of jobs implode, crashing salaries for some time, until (maybe) the growth restarts around new kinds of software, kinds that'll be in high demand and not something that can be made by a few "analytical/social" people herding LLMs. I'd normally say this won't happen, but rather that the software economy will slow down, stabilize, and get boring like everything else - but then, so much of software is driven purely by advertising, and advertising is a negative sum game, so surely they'll invent more bullshit jobs for us.
- acdha 2y ago
  Yeah, I’m really not sure either with the general backdrop of looming American disinvestment and the entire world reconsidering reliance on American companies. I don’t think reversing the trend of consolidation is going to be enough to balance it out.

by acdha 2y ago

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> I’m saying people should stop expecting to get six figures for being able to run create-react-app and deploy a container. The analytical and social parts of the job are where I predict LLMs to make fewer inroads because they require non-generic understanding. That's a fair take. I do wonder though, how much will those "analytical and social parts of the job" be paying - I imagine you might no longer get six figures for that either, because high tech salaries are fueled by absurd growth of the industry, which manifests in a large part in software that's basically just {framework du jour + basic-level CRUD, that hasn't changed much in 30 years + branding}, and that kind of software I expect to get eaten by LLMs entirely. Even with cookie-cutter app coders out of the way, the remaining software engineers might see the number of jobs implode, crashing salaries for some time, until (maybe) the growth restarts around new kinds of software, kinds that'll be in high demand and not something that can be made by a few "analytical/social" people herding LLMs. I'd normally say this won't happen, but rather that the software economy will slow down, stabilize, and get boring like everything else - but then, so much of software is driven purely by advertising, and advertising is a negative sum game, so surely they'll invent more bullshit jobs for us.

acdha 2y ago
Yeah, I’m really not sure either with the general backdrop of looming American disinvestment and the entire world reconsidering reliance on American companies. I don’t think reversing the trend of consolidation is going to be enough to balance it out.