3 ms·

This article suggests it is specialists who are "at risk", but as much more of a generalist I was thinking the opposite and starting to regret not specialising

This article suggests it is specialists who are "at risk", but as much more of a generalist I was thinking the opposite and starting to regret not specialising more. My value so far in my career has been my very broad knowledge of basically the entire of computer science, IT, engineering, science, mathematics, and even beyond. Basically, I read a lot, at least 10x more than most people it seems. I was starting to wonder how relevant that now is, given that LLMs have read everything. But maybe I'm wrong about what my skill actually is. Everyone has had LLMs for years now and yet I still seem better at finding info, contextualising it and assimilating it than a lot of people. I'm now using LLMs too but so far I haven't seen anyone use an LLM to become like me. So I remain slightly confused about what exactly it is about me and people like me that makes us valuable.

falloutx 10mo ago
I mean there is no strat that saves you 100% from it. The layoffs are kind of random, based on teams they dont see any vision for, or engineers who dont perform. Generalising is better imo.
cowl 10mo ago
LLMs have read EVERYTHING yes. that includes a lot of not optimal solutions, repeating mantras about past best practices that are not relevant anymore, thousands of blog posts about how to draw an owl by drawing two circles and leaving the rest as an exercise to the reader etc. The value of a good engineer is his current-context judgment. Something that LLMs can not do Well. Second point, something that is being mentioned occasionally but not discussed seriously enough, is that the Dead Internet Theory is becoming a reality. The amount of good, professionally written training materials is by now exhausted and LLMs will start to feed on their own slop. See How little the LLM's core competency increased in the last year even with the big expansion of their parameters. Babysitting LLM's output will be the big thing in the next two years.

falloutx 10mo ago

I mean there is no strat that saves you 100% from it. The layoffs are kind of random, based on teams they dont see any vision for, or engineers who dont perform. Generalising is better imo.

cowl 10mo ago

LLMs have read EVERYTHING yes. that includes a lot of not optimal solutions, repeating mantras about past best practices that are not relevant anymore, thousands of blog posts about how to draw an owl by drawing two circles and leaving the rest as an exercise to the reader etc. The value of a good engineer is his current-context judgment. Something that LLMs can not do Well. Second point, something that is being mentioned occasionally but not discussed seriously enough, is that the Dead Internet Theory is becoming a reality. The amount of good, professionally written training materials is by now exhausted and LLMs will start to feed on their own slop. See How little the LLM's core competency increased in the last year even with the big expansion of their parameters. Babysitting LLM's output will be the big thing in the next two years.