5 ms·

> But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day. I don't see how this is the case if you're anything more than a junior

by xvector 6mo ago

> But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day. I don't see how this is the case if you're anything more than a junior engineer... it unlocks so many possibilities. You can do so much more now. We are more limited by our ideas at this point than anything else. Why is the reaction of so many people, once their menial work gets automated, "oh no, my menial work is automated." Why is it not "sweet, now I can do bigger/better/more ambitious things?" (You can go on about corporate culture as the cause, but I've worked at regular corporations and most of FAANG. Initiative is rewarded almost everywhere.) > Does anybody really buy the BS that this will all make the world a better place one day? Why is it BS? I'm shocked that anyone with a love and passion for technology can feel this way. Have you not seen the long history of automation and what it has brought humanity? There is a reason that we aren't dying of dysentery at the ripe age of 45 on some peasant field after a hard winter day's worth of hard labor. The march of automation and technology has already "made the world a better place."

miltonlost 6mo ago
Keep marching that automation and tehcnology to an acidified ocean. But hey, at least now we can code faster than we can review!
- solenoid0937 6mo ago
  AI won't be what acidifies our ocean, but AGI might save us from it. Strangely enough, I don't see you calling to end the consumption of meat which would have a far larger environmental impact while not slowing global progress at all.
  - palata 6mo ago
    > AI won't be what acidifies our ocean Tech is what got us where we are. AI allows us to use more energy to produce more of what is currently measurably killing us. > but AGI might save us from it. This is just faith. Some believe that prayers may save us.
    - solenoid0937 6mo ago
      "AI energy usage" is a convenient scapegoat not backed by data. Many things are orders of magnitude bigger than AI in the energy usage problem that bring less comparable value.
      - remich 6mo ago
        I'm starting to get to the point where I'll only listen to AI energy use critiques if the commentator tells me up front they abstain from all forms of social media, especially video-based social media, first.
        palata 6mo ago
        Lucky me: I don't use social media at all. Note that I did not criticise the AI energy. I criticised tech as a whole. Tech is part of the problem (the problem here being "we are killing our only planet").
      - sillyfluke 6mo ago
        If the current admin wasn't waging a war on the renewables they don't have personal investments in and propping up their own AI investments energy needs with revitalized fossil fuel barons while they get in on the new pie-in-the-sky "future" energy sources the tech oligarchs point to (nuclear fusion startups) in order to at least get rich if an alternative fuel source they actually invested in pans out, I could perhaps reconsider the notion that this comment isn't worth the pixel it's colored on.
      - palata 6mo ago
        > "AI energy usage" is a convenient scapegoat not backed by data. Except it's not what I said. What I said is that with AI, we do more with more (energy). "Doing more" has repercussions that go further than just the energy used to vibe code. The reason we are measurably living in a mass extinction (that is happening orders of magnitudes faster than the one that made the dinosaurs disappear) is also the reason the climate is measurably warming (to the point where it will probably kill many of us): we are really good at producing more by using more energy. It's not one thing (like airplanes, or meat, or whatever you want): it's everywhere. It's the whole race for producing more and more. AI is exactly part of that. Looking at the direct energy consumption of a technology (here AI) while conveniently ignoring all its indirect impacts and concluding that "I can't understand why people think that tech is part of the problem" shows a big lack of understanding of... well, what will probably kill your kids, most likely theirs.
delbronski 6mo ago
And I’m shocked that anyone into tech can be so blind to the adverse effects the current tech industry is having on our world and our society. We owe it to the world, as the experts, to be critical. The march of automation and technology has made the world a better place in some ways. I sure love modern medicine, but those drones flying over Ukraine and Russia sure don’t seem like they are making the world a better place. Nuclear bombs are not making the work a better place. Misinformation in social media is not making the world a better place. Any belief you drink blindly will eventually find a way to harm you.
- xvector 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - delbronski 6mo ago
    Oh yeah, no you are right. Sorry for focusing on that little part of space and time where I and everyone I know and love is alive and being affected by our decisions. How dumb of me!
    - solenoid0937 6mo ago
      It actually is genuinely wrong to prioritize your little bit of space and time over the needs of the species as a whole and the benefit of untold future billions. If everyone thought like you we'd be stuck in the pre-Industrial phase. How miserable that would be!
palata 6mo ago
> There is a reason that we aren't dying of dysentery at the ripe age of 45 on some peasant field after a hard winter day's worth of hard labor. Tell that to the people who will die before 45 because of global instability and global warming, I guess?
GeoAtreides 6mo ago
>Why is the reaction of so many people, once their menial work gets automated, "oh no, my menial work is automated." Why is it not "sweet, now I can do bigger/better/more ambitious things?" because i have rent to pay? old age to prepare for? why is it so hard to understand most people are not rich, that the cost of living is high, and that most people are VERY afraid their jobs will be automated away? why is so hard to understand that most people haven't worked at FAANG, they don't have stocks or savings, and are squeezed harder with every new day and every new war? what world, what reality are you guys living in?!
- xvector 6mo ago
  Because there is always work to do. It is true that demand will drop for those that don't take initiative and aren't sure what to do now that AI can do their repetitive tasks. However, demand will surge for those that can think critically about how to utilize AI to empower businesses. "Software engineer" as a profession is rapidly getting automated at my company, and yet our SWEs are delivering more value than ever before. The layer of abstraction has changed, that is all. > what world, what reality are you guys living in?! One that has seen immense benefits from the Industrial Revolution and previous waves of automation.
  - GeoAtreides 6mo ago
    you might want to brush up on the short and medium consequences of the industrial revolution and the dark satanic mills where children were maimed or where people worked for 12h a day in horrendous conditions. Do you think because 2 dev are now super productive with AI, the company will keep the other average 30 devs? no, of course not, they will fire and pocket the difference. Same for other industries, where AI will slowly diffuse like a poisonous gas and displace jobs and people, leaving behind a crippled white collar class. The profits will not trickle down and the increased productivity will be a hatchet, not a plough.
    - senordevnyc 6mo ago
      where children were maimed or where people worked for 12h a day in horrendous conditions Such things were super uncommon before the industrial revolution, I'm sure.
RivieraKid 6mo ago
> I don't see how this is the case if you're anything more than a junior engineer... it unlocks so many possibilities. I really don't understand this way of thinking. Don't you think that AI could replace senior engineers? Sure, companies will be able to do bigger / better / more ambitious stuff - but without any software engineers. > Why is it BS? I'm shocked that anyone with a love and passion for technology can feel this way. Have you not seen the long history of automation and what it has brought humanity? I definitely think that AI will be a net benefit for society but it could easily end up being be bad for me.
- ej88 6mo ago
  there doesnt seem to be a limit in terms of the ceiling of what companies can do with software, probably the most elastic demand out of any industry ever the swe role is going to change but problem solving systems thinkers with initiative won't go away
  - RivieraKid 6mo ago
    That's a possible outcome. Another possibility is that AI will handle all of the thinking and problem solving part. So the market value of thinking will drop. The bottleneck will still be humans, but their input will be (1) doing physical, real-world stuff (2) providing data that the AI doesn't have, e.g. information about a specific problem domain or how does a user interface feel.
    - ej88 6mo ago
      assuming no asi, the market value of thinking without accountability trends to zero, the bottleneck will be thinking + accountability, at least for knowledge work if ai truly solves novel thinking then nothing is a barrier. the physical world is downstream from robotics which is downstream from software. itll be able to persuade nation states to collect data for itself etc etc (insert sci fi ending)
- szatkus 6mo ago
  So far AI doesn't seem even close to replacing senior engieeners. Hell, it can't even replace junior engieeners entirely. I use AI agents every day at work and I'm happy with that, but it took over two years and billions of dollars in investment to deliver anything useful (Claude Code et al). The current models are amazing, but they still randomly make mistakes that even a junior wouldn't make. There's another paradigm shift to be made certainly, because currently it feels like we scaled up a bug brain to spit out code. It works great for some problems, but it's not what software developers usually do at work.

by xvector 6mo ago

miltonlost 6mo ago

Keep marching that automation and tehcnology to an acidified ocean. But hey, at least now we can code faster than we can review!

solenoid0937 6mo ago
AI won't be what acidifies our ocean, but AGI might save us from it. Strangely enough, I don't see you calling to end the consumption of meat which would have a far larger environmental impact while not slowing global progress at all.
- palata 6mo ago
  > AI won't be what acidifies our ocean Tech is what got us where we are. AI allows us to use more energy to produce more of what is currently measurably killing us. > but AGI might save us from it. This is just faith. Some believe that prayers may save us.
  - solenoid0937 6mo ago
    "AI energy usage" is a convenient scapegoat not backed by data. Many things are orders of magnitude bigger than AI in the energy usage problem that bring less comparable value.
    - remich 6mo ago
      I'm starting to get to the point where I'll only listen to AI energy use critiques if the commentator tells me up front they abstain from all forms of social media, especially video-based social media, first.
      - palata 6mo ago
        Lucky me: I don't use social media at all. Note that I did not criticise the AI energy. I criticised tech as a whole. Tech is part of the problem (the problem here being "we are killing our only planet").
    - sillyfluke 6mo ago
      If the current admin wasn't waging a war on the renewables they don't have personal investments in and propping up their own AI investments energy needs with revitalized fossil fuel barons while they get in on the new pie-in-the-sky "future" energy sources the tech oligarchs point to (nuclear fusion startups) in order to at least get rich if an alternative fuel source they actually invested in pans out, I could perhaps reconsider the notion that this comment isn't worth the pixel it's colored on.
    - palata 6mo ago
      > "AI energy usage" is a convenient scapegoat not backed by data. Except it's not what I said. What I said is that with AI, we do more with more (energy). "Doing more" has repercussions that go further than just the energy used to vibe code. The reason we are measurably living in a mass extinction (that is happening orders of magnitudes faster than the one that made the dinosaurs disappear) is also the reason the climate is measurably warming (to the point where it will probably kill many of us): we are really good at producing more by using more energy. It's not one thing (like airplanes, or meat, or whatever you want): it's everywhere. It's the whole race for producing more and more. AI is exactly part of that. Looking at the direct energy consumption of a technology (here AI) while conveniently ignoring all its indirect impacts and concluding that "I can't understand why people think that tech is part of the problem" shows a big lack of understanding of... well, what will probably kill your kids, most likely theirs.

delbronski 6mo ago

And I’m shocked that anyone into tech can be so blind to the adverse effects the current tech industry is having on our world and our society. We owe it to the world, as the experts, to be critical. The march of automation and technology has made the world a better place in some ways. I sure love modern medicine, but those drones flying over Ukraine and Russia sure don’t seem like they are making the world a better place. Nuclear bombs are not making the work a better place. Misinformation in social media is not making the world a better place. Any belief you drink blindly will eventually find a way to harm you.

xvector 6mo ago
[flagged]
- delbronski 6mo ago
  Oh yeah, no you are right. Sorry for focusing on that little part of space and time where I and everyone I know and love is alive and being affected by our decisions. How dumb of me!
  - solenoid0937 6mo ago
    It actually is genuinely wrong to prioritize your little bit of space and time over the needs of the species as a whole and the benefit of untold future billions. If everyone thought like you we'd be stuck in the pre-Industrial phase. How miserable that would be!

palata 6mo ago

> There is a reason that we aren't dying of dysentery at the ripe age of 45 on some peasant field after a hard winter day's worth of hard labor. Tell that to the people who will die before 45 because of global instability and global warming, I guess?

GeoAtreides 6mo ago

>Why is the reaction of so many people, once their menial work gets automated, "oh no, my menial work is automated." Why is it not "sweet, now I can do bigger/better/more ambitious things?" because i have rent to pay? old age to prepare for? why is it so hard to understand most people are not rich, that the cost of living is high, and that most people are VERY afraid their jobs will be automated away? why is so hard to understand that most people haven't worked at FAANG, they don't have stocks or savings, and are squeezed harder with every new day and every new war? what world, what reality are you guys living in?!

xvector 6mo ago
Because there is always work to do. It is true that demand will drop for those that don't take initiative and aren't sure what to do now that AI can do their repetitive tasks. However, demand will surge for those that can think critically about how to utilize AI to empower businesses. "Software engineer" as a profession is rapidly getting automated at my company, and yet our SWEs are delivering more value than ever before. The layer of abstraction has changed, that is all. > what world, what reality are you guys living in?! One that has seen immense benefits from the Industrial Revolution and previous waves of automation.
- GeoAtreides 6mo ago
  you might want to brush up on the short and medium consequences of the industrial revolution and the dark satanic mills where children were maimed or where people worked for 12h a day in horrendous conditions. Do you think because 2 dev are now super productive with AI, the company will keep the other average 30 devs? no, of course not, they will fire and pocket the difference. Same for other industries, where AI will slowly diffuse like a poisonous gas and displace jobs and people, leaving behind a crippled white collar class. The profits will not trickle down and the increased productivity will be a hatchet, not a plough.
  - senordevnyc 6mo ago
    where children were maimed or where people worked for 12h a day in horrendous conditions Such things were super uncommon before the industrial revolution, I'm sure.

RivieraKid 6mo ago

> I don't see how this is the case if you're anything more than a junior engineer... it unlocks so many possibilities. I really don't understand this way of thinking. Don't you think that AI could replace senior engineers? Sure, companies will be able to do bigger / better / more ambitious stuff - but without any software engineers. > Why is it BS? I'm shocked that anyone with a love and passion for technology can feel this way. Have you not seen the long history of automation and what it has brought humanity? I definitely think that AI will be a net benefit for society but it could easily end up being be bad for me.

ej88 6mo ago
there doesnt seem to be a limit in terms of the ceiling of what companies can do with software, probably the most elastic demand out of any industry ever the swe role is going to change but problem solving systems thinkers with initiative won't go away
- RivieraKid 6mo ago
  That's a possible outcome. Another possibility is that AI will handle all of the thinking and problem solving part. So the market value of thinking will drop. The bottleneck will still be humans, but their input will be (1) doing physical, real-world stuff (2) providing data that the AI doesn't have, e.g. information about a specific problem domain or how does a user interface feel.
  - ej88 6mo ago
    assuming no asi, the market value of thinking without accountability trends to zero, the bottleneck will be thinking + accountability, at least for knowledge work if ai truly solves novel thinking then nothing is a barrier. the physical world is downstream from robotics which is downstream from software. itll be able to persuade nation states to collect data for itself etc etc (insert sci fi ending)
szatkus 6mo ago
So far AI doesn't seem even close to replacing senior engieeners. Hell, it can't even replace junior engieeners entirely. I use AI agents every day at work and I'm happy with that, but it took over two years and billions of dollars in investment to deliver anything useful (Claude Code et al). The current models are amazing, but they still randomly make mistakes that even a junior wouldn't make. There's another paradigm shift to be made certainly, because currently it feels like we scaled up a bug brain to spit out code. It works great for some problems, but it's not what software developers usually do at work.