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> I went to the coffeeshop and drank very good coffee listening to music. Then at night I sat and had a beer thinking about T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland', the ef

> I went to the coffeeshop and drank very good coffee listening to music. Then at night I sat and had a beer thinking about T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland', the effect of industrialization in England at that time and his views of how ennui affected the aristocracy. Well, for those among us that are not aristocracy already, except for the vanishingly small number of people required to oversee such processes, we’re probably the closest we’re going to get to it. If they don’t need people to do the tech labor, we’ve got way more people than we need, so that’s a huge oversupply of tech skills, which means tech skills are rapidly becoming worthless. Glad to see how fast we’re moving in our very own race to the bottom!

drfloyd51 7mo ago
I kind of feel like software engineers working on improving AI are traitors working against other SE’s trying to make a living. However… I have to acknowledge my craft of SE has been putting people out of work for decades. I myself came up with business process improvement that directly let the company release about 20 people. I did this twice. So… fair play.
- mannanj 7mo ago
  Aren't the true traitors still the ones paying the SE to do that work? The managerial slave-master class?
  - drfloyd51 7mo ago
    You always have a choice to make. You make it everyday. Get up. Go to a legitimate job. Work. You probably choose not to steal, rob, impersonate someone else, or generally make money illegally. It can be traitors all the way down.
- marsten 7mo ago
  In the grand scheme it's good to invent things that replace human labor. It frees up people to do more interesting things. The goal should be to put everyone out of a job.
  - pixl97 7mo ago
    >It frees up people to do more interesting things Like beg on the corners and starve in the street? Trying to figure out how the basics of capitalism where labor is exchanged for money is not going to work well when the only jobs left are side gigs. Something will have to change and a lot of People will fight said change.
    - DowsingSpoon 7mo ago
      I’ve thought about this myself. Couple of points: 1) It’s not my job to fix all the problems of Capitalism. It’s painful to try to fight the system without collective action. My family and I have to eat too. 2) We have had a solution all along for the particular problem of AI putting devs out of work. It’s called professional licensure, and you can see it in action in engineering and medical fields. Professional Software Engineers would assume a certain amount of liability and responsibility for the software they develop. That’s regardless of whether they develop it with LLM tools or something else. For example, you let your tools write slop that you ship without even looking? And it goes on to wreak havoc? That’s professional malpractice. Bad engineer. If we do this then Software Engineers become the responsible humans in the loop of so-called “AI” systems.
      - drfloyd51 7mo ago
        It’s not your job to fix capitalism. But it is your job to evaluate if your money making skill comes at too high a price for others. Say you found a job shooting people in the head for money. Like if you work for ICE or something… You need to feed your family. Is this job ok? You may decide yes. I decided no. I will find another way to feed my family. You don’t get to escape consequences because you are a small cog in a large system. In the bigger picture, automation should free people from labor. But that requires some very greedy people to relax their grip ever so slightly. I imagine they see automation as a way to reduce reliance on labor, and if they don’t need labor, they don’t need people. So let them starve and stop having kids.
        DrewADesign 7mo ago
- renewiltord 7mo ago
  Sure, but that’s fine. I don’t have any allegiance to other software engineers.
  - DrewADesign 7mo ago
    Do you think other people’s sense of ethics should be so transactional towards you? Companies that might sell your data to shitty date brokers have no allegiance to you. Muggers have no allegiance to the people they mug. They’re both executing their professional tasks that benefit the people they have allegience to. They’re contributing to the velocity of money in our society. The data might even be used to market beneficial goods and service. So… thumbs up? Or would you feel differently if it was someone else profiting at your expense.
    - cindyllm 7mo ago
      [dead]
    - renewiltord 7mo ago
      Yes, none of these guys have any allegiance to me. Trying to form a union of muggers with a guy trying to mug me won’t work. You’re welcome to try it if you think it will work for you but I’m not going to.
      - DrewADesign 7mo ago
        Copout.
psychoslave 7mo ago
Lol,a race to the bottom where too many tech savvy people are left unemployed while a few "privileged" get a decreasing buying power to maintain security of the digital tools that keep the whole digital dependent civilizations afloat? Sounds like a great starting plot for an interesting story.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

drfloyd51 7mo ago

I kind of feel like software engineers working on improving AI are traitors working against other SE’s trying to make a living. However… I have to acknowledge my craft of SE has been putting people out of work for decades. I myself came up with business process improvement that directly let the company release about 20 people. I did this twice. So… fair play.

mannanj 7mo ago
Aren't the true traitors still the ones paying the SE to do that work? The managerial slave-master class?
- drfloyd51 7mo ago
  You always have a choice to make. You make it everyday. Get up. Go to a legitimate job. Work. You probably choose not to steal, rob, impersonate someone else, or generally make money illegally. It can be traitors all the way down.
marsten 7mo ago
In the grand scheme it's good to invent things that replace human labor. It frees up people to do more interesting things. The goal should be to put everyone out of a job.
- pixl97 7mo ago
  >It frees up people to do more interesting things Like beg on the corners and starve in the street? Trying to figure out how the basics of capitalism where labor is exchanged for money is not going to work well when the only jobs left are side gigs. Something will have to change and a lot of People will fight said change.
  - DowsingSpoon 7mo ago
    I’ve thought about this myself. Couple of points: 1) It’s not my job to fix all the problems of Capitalism. It’s painful to try to fight the system without collective action. My family and I have to eat too. 2) We have had a solution all along for the particular problem of AI putting devs out of work. It’s called professional licensure, and you can see it in action in engineering and medical fields. Professional Software Engineers would assume a certain amount of liability and responsibility for the software they develop. That’s regardless of whether they develop it with LLM tools or something else. For example, you let your tools write slop that you ship without even looking? And it goes on to wreak havoc? That’s professional malpractice. Bad engineer. If we do this then Software Engineers become the responsible humans in the loop of so-called “AI” systems.
    - drfloyd51 7mo ago
      It’s not your job to fix capitalism. But it is your job to evaluate if your money making skill comes at too high a price for others. Say you found a job shooting people in the head for money. Like if you work for ICE or something… You need to feed your family. Is this job ok? You may decide yes. I decided no. I will find another way to feed my family. You don’t get to escape consequences because you are a small cog in a large system. In the bigger picture, automation should free people from labor. But that requires some very greedy people to relax their grip ever so slightly. I imagine they see automation as a way to reduce reliance on labor, and if they don’t need labor, they don’t need people. So let them starve and stop having kids.
      - DrewADesign 7mo ago
renewiltord 7mo ago
Sure, but that’s fine. I don’t have any allegiance to other software engineers.
- DrewADesign 7mo ago
  Do you think other people’s sense of ethics should be so transactional towards you? Companies that might sell your data to shitty date brokers have no allegiance to you. Muggers have no allegiance to the people they mug. They’re both executing their professional tasks that benefit the people they have allegience to. They’re contributing to the velocity of money in our society. The data might even be used to market beneficial goods and service. So… thumbs up? Or would you feel differently if it was someone else profiting at your expense.
  - cindyllm 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - renewiltord 7mo ago
    Yes, none of these guys have any allegiance to me. Trying to form a union of muggers with a guy trying to mug me won’t work. You’re welcome to try it if you think it will work for you but I’m not going to.
    - DrewADesign 7mo ago
      Copout.

psychoslave 7mo ago

Lol,a race to the bottom where too many tech savvy people are left unemployed while a few "privileged" get a decreasing buying power to maintain security of the digital tools that keep the whole digital dependent civilizations afloat? Sounds like a great starting plot for an interesting story.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]