3 ms·

> As an engineer, I'm never more excited about this job. How long do you think it'll take for the AI trend to mostly automate the parts of your job that still

by the_af 6mo ago

> As an engineer, I'm never more excited about this job. How long do you think it'll take for the AI trend to mostly automate the parts of your job that still make you excited? Everyone thinks it won't be them, it will be others that will be impacted. We all think what we do is somehow unique and cannot be automated away by AI, and that our jobs are safe for the time being.

xienze 6mo ago
> How long do you think it'll take for the AI trend to mostly automate the parts of your job that still make you excited? Yeah, no one ever thinks beyond "whoa, how cool, I cloned Slack in 15 minutes!" Personally, the thing I find more depressing is turning a career that was primarily about solving interesting puzzles in elegant ways into managing a swarm of idiot savant chatbots with "OK, that looks good" or "no, do it better" commands.
- Aperocky 6mo ago
  The problem that I'm trying to solve with agent is similar here, for instance, my comment likely made zero impression on you because I'm against both of the things that you are also against here.
- yks 6mo ago
  > managing a swarm of idiot savant chatbots with "OK, that looks good" or "no, do it better" commands. That’s what the management class thinks of software development process anyway, LLMs are just more idiotic and more savant than swes
Aperocky 6mo ago
As someone in 99th percentile in terms of token usage, it's super clear to me where the agent will not be able to replace my judgement, two areas: 1. if it exceed the context the agent does random stuff, that are often against simplicity and coherent logical structure. 2. LLM has zero intention, and rely on you to decide what to build and more importantly not build. As such, I'm the limit of the numbers of concurrent agents working fo rme, because there is still a limit to my output of engineering judgement. I do get better, both at generating and delivering this judgement. Exceeding this limit, the output becomes garbage. At this current year and date, the AI does not automate me in anyway, I have something that they just flat out don't have.
- the_af 6mo ago
  Playing devil's advocate here, I'm not antagonizing you but thinking out loud. > if it exceed the context the agent does random stuff, that are often against simplicity and coherent logical structure. That's a current technical limitation. Are you so sure it won't be overcome in the near/mid future? > LLM has zero intention, and rely on you to decide what to build and more importantly not build But work is being done to even remove or automate this layer, right? It can be hyperbole (in fact, it is) but aren't Anthropic et al predicting this? Why wouldn't your boss, or your boss' boss, do this instead of you? If they lack the judgment currently, are you so sure they cannot gain it, if they don't have to waste time learning how to code? If not now, what about soon-ish? > At this current year and date, the AI does not automate me in anyway Not now, granted. But what about soon? In other words, shouldn't you be worried as well as excited?
  - ChrisLTD 6mo ago
    Does it seem to you like those issues will be solved soon? Does your boss have the time to do this AI wrangling work on top of their other tasks even if they don't have to learn to code?
    - Aperocky 6mo ago
      If they never learned to code, it wouldn't be very easy to build or catch the BS that AI generate.
      - ChrisLTD 6mo ago
        Yes, this is the obvious problem. We've been through cycles like this before. Back in the day, Dreamweaver was going to put every web developer out of a job. More recently, Squarespace was going to do something similar. However, as soon as you step out of the well-trodden path, you're encountering tougher to debug issue, or you want some customization that the tools aren't aware of or designed to handle, and now you're hiring or paying a specialist again.
9rx 6mo ago
> How long do you think it'll take for the AI trend to mostly automate the parts of your job that still make you excited? The exciting part of the job is, and always has been, listening to idle chitchat where you pick up on the subtle cues of where one is finding difficulty in their life and then solving those problems. I think AI could already largely handle that today just fine, except: You have to convince, especially non-technical, people to have idle chitchat with machines instead of humans -or- Convince them of and into having a machine always listening in to their idle conversations with humans Neither of those are all that palatable in the current social landscape. If anything, people seem to be growing more weary of letting technology into their thoughts. Maybe there is never a future where humans become accepting of machines being always there trying to figure out what is wrong with them. The trouble with AI replacing jobs is that a lot of jobs exist only because people want to have other people to talk to and are willing to pay for the company.

by the_af 6mo ago

xienze 6mo ago

> How long do you think it'll take for the AI trend to mostly automate the parts of your job that still make you excited? Yeah, no one ever thinks beyond "whoa, how cool, I cloned Slack in 15 minutes!" Personally, the thing I find more depressing is turning a career that was primarily about solving interesting puzzles in elegant ways into managing a swarm of idiot savant chatbots with "OK, that looks good" or "no, do it better" commands.

Aperocky 6mo ago
The problem that I'm trying to solve with agent is similar here, for instance, my comment likely made zero impression on you because I'm against both of the things that you are also against here.
yks 6mo ago
> managing a swarm of idiot savant chatbots with "OK, that looks good" or "no, do it better" commands. That’s what the management class thinks of software development process anyway, LLMs are just more idiotic and more savant than swes

Aperocky 6mo ago

As someone in 99th percentile in terms of token usage, it's super clear to me where the agent will not be able to replace my judgement, two areas: 1. if it exceed the context the agent does random stuff, that are often against simplicity and coherent logical structure. 2. LLM has zero intention, and rely on you to decide what to build and more importantly not build. As such, I'm the limit of the numbers of concurrent agents working fo rme, because there is still a limit to my output of engineering judgement. I do get better, both at generating and delivering this judgement. Exceeding this limit, the output becomes garbage. At this current year and date, the AI does not automate me in anyway, I have something that they just flat out don't have.

the_af 6mo ago
Playing devil's advocate here, I'm not antagonizing you but thinking out loud. > if it exceed the context the agent does random stuff, that are often against simplicity and coherent logical structure. That's a current technical limitation. Are you so sure it won't be overcome in the near/mid future? > LLM has zero intention, and rely on you to decide what to build and more importantly not build But work is being done to even remove or automate this layer, right? It can be hyperbole (in fact, it is) but aren't Anthropic et al predicting this? Why wouldn't your boss, or your boss' boss, do this instead of you? If they lack the judgment currently, are you so sure they cannot gain it, if they don't have to waste time learning how to code? If not now, what about soon-ish? > At this current year and date, the AI does not automate me in anyway Not now, granted. But what about soon? In other words, shouldn't you be worried as well as excited?
- ChrisLTD 6mo ago
  Does it seem to you like those issues will be solved soon? Does your boss have the time to do this AI wrangling work on top of their other tasks even if they don't have to learn to code?
  - Aperocky 6mo ago
    If they never learned to code, it wouldn't be very easy to build or catch the BS that AI generate.
    - ChrisLTD 6mo ago
      Yes, this is the obvious problem. We've been through cycles like this before. Back in the day, Dreamweaver was going to put every web developer out of a job. More recently, Squarespace was going to do something similar. However, as soon as you step out of the well-trodden path, you're encountering tougher to debug issue, or you want some customization that the tools aren't aware of or designed to handle, and now you're hiring or paying a specialist again.

9rx 6mo ago

> How long do you think it'll take for the AI trend to mostly automate the parts of your job that still make you excited? The exciting part of the job is, and always has been, listening to idle chitchat where you pick up on the subtle cues of where one is finding difficulty in their life and then solving those problems. I think AI could already largely handle that today just fine, except: You have to convince, especially non-technical, people to have idle chitchat with machines instead of humans -or- Convince them of and into having a machine always listening in to their idle conversations with humans Neither of those are all that palatable in the current social landscape. If anything, people seem to be growing more weary of letting technology into their thoughts. Maybe there is never a future where humans become accepting of machines being always there trying to figure out what is wrong with them. The trouble with AI replacing jobs is that a lot of jobs exist only because people want to have other people to talk to and are willing to pay for the company.