5 ms·

> What if it just makes most jobs worse, or replaces good jobs with more, worse jobs? Right. Consider: 1) Senior engineer writing code vs. 2) Senior enginee

by lapcat 1y ago

> What if it just makes most jobs worse, or replaces good jobs with more, worse jobs? Right. Consider: 1) Senior engineer writing code vs. 2) Senior engineer prompting and code reviewing LLM agent The senior engineer is essential to the process in each case, because the LLM agent left to its own devices will produce nonfunctional crap. But think about the pleasantness of the job and the job satisfaction of the senior engineer? Speaking just for myself, I'd rather quit the industry than spend my career babysitting nonhuman A.I. That's not what I signed up for.

shafyy 1y ago
Same. I actually like writing code, reviewing code that my colleagues have written, having interesting technical discusisons. I don't want to spend my days reviewing code that some AI has written. But I guess if you don't like writing code, and you are "just doing it for the money", having an LLM write all the code for you is fine. As long as it passes some very low bar of quality — which, let's be honest — is enough for most companies (i.e. software factories) out there.
AstroBen 1y ago
As of right now it's actually making my job much more enjoyable. It lets me focus on the things I enjoy thinking about - code design, architecture, and the higher level of how to solve problems I haven't seen any evidence its made progress on these which is nice
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
Same here. But for every one of us, there are probably 10 people out there who'd be more happy babysitting an LLM than actually writing code.
sasmithjr 1y ago
I don't think it's an exclusive choice between the two, though. I think senior engineers will end up doing both. Looking at GitHub Copilot's agent, it can work asynchronously from the user, so a senior engineer can send it off to work on multiple issues at once while still working on tasks that aren't well suited for the agent. And really, I think many senior engineers are already doing both in a lot of cases where they're helping guide and teach junior and early mid-level developers.
- lapcat 1y ago
  > And really, I think many senior engineers are already doing both in a lot of cases where they're helping guide and teach junior and early mid-level developers. Babysitting and correcting automated tools is radically different from mentoring less experienced engineers. First, and most important IMO, there's no relationship. It's entirely impersonal. You become alienated from your fellow humans. I'm reminded of Mark Zuckerberg recently claiming that in the future, most of your "friends" will be A.I. That's not an ideal, it's a damn dystopia. Moreover, you're not teaching the LLM anything. If the LLMs happen to become better in the future, that's not due to your mentoring. The time you spend reviewing the automatically generated code does not have any productive side effects, doesn't help to "level up" your coworkers/copilots. Also, since LLMs aren't human, they don't make human mistakes. In some sense, reviewing a human engineer's code is an exercise in mind reading: you can guess what they were thinking, and where they might have overlooked something. But LLMs don't "think" in the same way, and they tend to produce bizarre results and mistakes that a human would never make. Reviewing their code can be a very different, and indeed unpleasant WTF experience.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  Guiding and teaching developers is rewarding because human connections are important I don't mentor juniors because it makes me more productive I mentor juniors because I enjoy watching a human grow and develop and gain expertise I am reminded of reports that Ian McKellen broke down crying on the set of one of The Hobbit movies because the joy of being an actor for him was nothing like acting on green screen sets delivering lines to a tennis ball on a stick
roywiggins 1y ago
This is more or less what happened to artisans during the industrial revolution: sell your tools, become a widget hammerer on the assembly line. Lots of jobs created for widget hammerers. Not a great deal for a lot of people. Deskilling jobs demonstrably sucks for the people with skills!

by lapcat 1y ago

shafyy 1y ago

Same. I actually like writing code, reviewing code that my colleagues have written, having interesting technical discusisons. I don't want to spend my days reviewing code that some AI has written. But I guess if you don't like writing code, and you are "just doing it for the money", having an LLM write all the code for you is fine. As long as it passes some very low bar of quality — which, let's be honest — is enough for most companies (i.e. software factories) out there.

AstroBen 1y ago

As of right now it's actually making my job much more enjoyable. It lets me focus on the things I enjoy thinking about - code design, architecture, and the higher level of how to solve problems I haven't seen any evidence its made progress on these which is nice

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago

Same here. But for every one of us, there are probably 10 people out there who'd be more happy babysitting an LLM than actually writing code.

sasmithjr 1y ago

I don't think it's an exclusive choice between the two, though. I think senior engineers will end up doing both. Looking at GitHub Copilot's agent, it can work asynchronously from the user, so a senior engineer can send it off to work on multiple issues at once while still working on tasks that aren't well suited for the agent. And really, I think many senior engineers are already doing both in a lot of cases where they're helping guide and teach junior and early mid-level developers.

lapcat 1y ago
> And really, I think many senior engineers are already doing both in a lot of cases where they're helping guide and teach junior and early mid-level developers. Babysitting and correcting automated tools is radically different from mentoring less experienced engineers. First, and most important IMO, there's no relationship. It's entirely impersonal. You become alienated from your fellow humans. I'm reminded of Mark Zuckerberg recently claiming that in the future, most of your "friends" will be A.I. That's not an ideal, it's a damn dystopia. Moreover, you're not teaching the LLM anything. If the LLMs happen to become better in the future, that's not due to your mentoring. The time you spend reviewing the automatically generated code does not have any productive side effects, doesn't help to "level up" your coworkers/copilots. Also, since LLMs aren't human, they don't make human mistakes. In some sense, reviewing a human engineer's code is an exercise in mind reading: you can guess what they were thinking, and where they might have overlooked something. But LLMs don't "think" in the same way, and they tend to produce bizarre results and mistakes that a human would never make. Reviewing their code can be a very different, and indeed unpleasant WTF experience.
bluefirebrand 1y ago
Guiding and teaching developers is rewarding because human connections are important I don't mentor juniors because it makes me more productive I mentor juniors because I enjoy watching a human grow and develop and gain expertise I am reminded of reports that Ian McKellen broke down crying on the set of one of The Hobbit movies because the joy of being an actor for him was nothing like acting on green screen sets delivering lines to a tennis ball on a stick

roywiggins 1y ago

This is more or less what happened to artisans during the industrial revolution: sell your tools, become a widget hammerer on the assembly line. Lots of jobs created for widget hammerers. Not a great deal for a lot of people. Deskilling jobs demonstrably sucks for the people with skills!