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No technology will have me "excited" if the prospect is lower/no compensation and poorer working conditions. I concur on the nuance -- I use it as a tool at wor

No technology will have me "excited" if the prospect is lower/no compensation and poorer working conditions. I concur on the nuance -- I use it as a tool at work. I see value in it. I see business value in it displacing me, even if that's not the maximally correct position because some higher up did some numeric calculations. The first prompt I got a decent reply to was a thrill. Then the thinking of the second-order effects kicked in.

tptacek 4mo ago
Just as long as you understand that this is how everybody else not in technology, from accountants to East Coast dockworkers and all points in between, have felt about everything we do in this field for the past 50 years. It's awfully tough to adopt a morally rigorous position about "lower compensation" when you're literally in the business of automating jobs away.
- w29UiIm2Xz 4mo ago
  Those people could've traded up. And plenty of people in the trades have done that. But now, it is not obvious what 'trading up' in this situation is. There was optionality: upskill and increase your compensation. Now, there may be no opportunity to upskill. And that is a meaningfully different environment. The other aspect to this is many of us spent our pre-LLM days writing basic CRUD apps for a living (and many of us still do so) -- we didn't meaningfully contribute to the rise of LLM technology. Very little of anything I did was in the public domain for training.
  - SoftTalker 4mo ago
    Ironically, the trades are now desperate for smart people who show up as scheduled and sober. Upskilling might be learning to be a plumber or electrician or carpenter.
  - phil21 4mo ago
    > Those people could've traded up. And plenty of people in the trades have done that. This is precisely the karma that is coming to us as a group. Because of this sort of stuff. No, a 50 year old trade worker cannot "trade up" in any realistic sense. That's idiotic on it's face. And that also ignores that many folks don't want to trade up because they get satisfaction in what they do - just like some tech workers do. Man of those folks also had moral and ethical reasons to not want to join an industry assisting in putting their friends and family out of work. > The other aspect to this is many of us spent our pre-LLM days writing basic CRUD apps for a living AKA automating other jobs away in many (perhaps most?) cases. Either directly or indirectly. These line-of-business applications tend to be automation of some sort which reduces manual labor. Be it on the factory floor, enabling that factory to be outsourced to China, or just making "paperwork" more efficient putting an office full of secretaries out of a job. Or working in some ad-tech enabled field which put entire industries out of work altogether. > we didn't meaningfully contribute to the rise of LLM technology. Very little of anything I did was in the public domain for training. Factory workers, skilled machinists, tool and die manufacturers, secretaries, accountants, journalists - effectively an infinite list - did not contribute to the IT over the past 30 years that replaced them either. That's the point being made in this sub-thread. But hey, you could always pivot your career to be a plumber, roofer, or electrician! While I'm certainly going to be part of the targeted group, I can't really say I'll be surprised at the working class laughing at us and enjoying IT folks getting their comeuppance. I haven't found a way to articulate my thoughts very well on this subject, others do it better even on HN. But coming from a working class family with most of my old school friends from growing up still working blue collar jobs - I can say it's been incredibly uncomfortable listening to the narratives from tech workers on these subjects for 25 years. It's been utterly amazing to me how people switched on a dime within a couple years on the subject now that their livelihoods are on the line. The calls for free markets, pro-automation, "just learn to code", anti-regulation, etc. all instantly changed the moment such folks had even a trivial amount of similar pressure put on them.
    - tptacek 4mo ago
      The exact same thing has happened with IPR.
- mplanchard 4mo ago
  It does feel a bit karmic, doesn’t it? I’ve never worked in a part of tech that was explicitly doing this, but I still feel as though all the current anxiety and uncertainty I myself am currently going through is in some way “earned” by my participation in this industry.
  - tptacek 4mo ago
    A lot of things in the technology field's internal debate about AI feel extremely karmic to me.
  - arvid-lind 4mo ago
    Really? Not sure if you like to work on your own cars, but would you also feel like you're accumulating negative karma for associating with the automotive and fossil fuel industries? We're not responsible for the world that is here right now, but we have to figure out how to operate within it. The idea that "we earned this" like we're all at fault for the state of things seems pretty far off. Not trying to say you're wrong but long way of saying don't be so hard on yourself, its not like you're Elon, Altman, any of the other awful figures steering our tech world right now.
    - thunky 4mo ago
      I don't think your analogy fits. Tech is directly responsible for automation, which impacts jobs. Tech workers didn't cry moral outrage then. But mow that tech may automate their job, suddenly it's evil.
      - arvid-lind 4mo ago
        My point was that the world we have is here, for better or worse, and "reaping what we sowed" seems like a wildly reductive and self-defeating interpretation. There's no way this guy who says he never worked directly on automation-related tech should feel like he's banking bad karma by earning a living doing the best he can. I'm assuming that not working in automation was a conscious decision, like I've also been very selective about my employers based on their general operating philosophies. The analogy wasn't the best, but the whole of tech isn't on the hook for this. Just like a typical daily driver or someone who works on their own car can't be directly responsible for the climate crisis. There are major players making the decisions that are causing the state we're in.
- queenkjuul 4mo ago
  Ah yeah, lowly web dev me, self-taught with no capital, is responsible for the choices of faceless corporations and sinister magnates I've never worked for nor interacted with nor influenced in even an infinitesimal way. I've never worked on software that automated someone's job away. But because I'm a programmer at all, it's partially my fault?
  - tptacek 4mo ago
    Like everyone else in the industry, you're almost certainly the beneficiary of an industry predicated on automating people's jobs away. Your labor is fungible. Your comp is based on supply and demand. Whatever work you do, you are subsidized in large part by the demands of projects that improve productivity elsewhere in the workforce. I'm not saying you personally set out to take anyone's job away. But our field is unusually well compensated because of its function in the broader marketplace. The point is that moralisms like "fault" don't operate here.
  - phil21 4mo ago
    > I've never worked on software that automated someone's job away. I think this would be very difficult to do as a web-dev. The web itself is a form of global scale automation in-itself. I am also a self-taught tech nerd. I have not "directly" worked on any specific automation project in terms of "come put this group out of work" - but I can't think of a single project I worked on that wasn't making current processes more efficient and automated - by largely removing remaining manual steps involved. This is why we exist to begin with, otherwise no one would be paying us to do the work. I wrote software that took server provisioning from a process that involved a tech typing on a keyboard every time, to clicking a button on a webUI to install an OS. A task many here at HN have done just for their home lab environment so as to make their own lives more efficient. This put zero people out of work. But it probably prevented hiring of at last a handful of low-level technicians over the course of that software's lifecycle. Which is the same thing to an industry at large. Even stuff as simple as writing code to put up a new post on a company website is contributing towards automating someone's job away. I have often stated computers are the ultimate robot. They fit in nearly every industry to automate things and make processes more efficient. These are code words for "less human labor needed" - aka less jobs.

tptacek 4mo ago

Just as long as you understand that this is how everybody else not in technology, from accountants to East Coast dockworkers and all points in between, have felt about everything we do in this field for the past 50 years. It's awfully tough to adopt a morally rigorous position about "lower compensation" when you're literally in the business of automating jobs away.

w29UiIm2Xz 4mo ago
Those people could've traded up. And plenty of people in the trades have done that. But now, it is not obvious what 'trading up' in this situation is. There was optionality: upskill and increase your compensation. Now, there may be no opportunity to upskill. And that is a meaningfully different environment. The other aspect to this is many of us spent our pre-LLM days writing basic CRUD apps for a living (and many of us still do so) -- we didn't meaningfully contribute to the rise of LLM technology. Very little of anything I did was in the public domain for training.
- SoftTalker 4mo ago
  Ironically, the trades are now desperate for smart people who show up as scheduled and sober. Upskilling might be learning to be a plumber or electrician or carpenter.
- phil21 4mo ago
  > Those people could've traded up. And plenty of people in the trades have done that. This is precisely the karma that is coming to us as a group. Because of this sort of stuff. No, a 50 year old trade worker cannot "trade up" in any realistic sense. That's idiotic on it's face. And that also ignores that many folks don't want to trade up because they get satisfaction in what they do - just like some tech workers do. Man of those folks also had moral and ethical reasons to not want to join an industry assisting in putting their friends and family out of work. > The other aspect to this is many of us spent our pre-LLM days writing basic CRUD apps for a living AKA automating other jobs away in many (perhaps most?) cases. Either directly or indirectly. These line-of-business applications tend to be automation of some sort which reduces manual labor. Be it on the factory floor, enabling that factory to be outsourced to China, or just making "paperwork" more efficient putting an office full of secretaries out of a job. Or working in some ad-tech enabled field which put entire industries out of work altogether. > we didn't meaningfully contribute to the rise of LLM technology. Very little of anything I did was in the public domain for training. Factory workers, skilled machinists, tool and die manufacturers, secretaries, accountants, journalists - effectively an infinite list - did not contribute to the IT over the past 30 years that replaced them either. That's the point being made in this sub-thread. But hey, you could always pivot your career to be a plumber, roofer, or electrician! While I'm certainly going to be part of the targeted group, I can't really say I'll be surprised at the working class laughing at us and enjoying IT folks getting their comeuppance. I haven't found a way to articulate my thoughts very well on this subject, others do it better even on HN. But coming from a working class family with most of my old school friends from growing up still working blue collar jobs - I can say it's been incredibly uncomfortable listening to the narratives from tech workers on these subjects for 25 years. It's been utterly amazing to me how people switched on a dime within a couple years on the subject now that their livelihoods are on the line. The calls for free markets, pro-automation, "just learn to code", anti-regulation, etc. all instantly changed the moment such folks had even a trivial amount of similar pressure put on them.
  - tptacek 4mo ago
    The exact same thing has happened with IPR.
mplanchard 4mo ago
It does feel a bit karmic, doesn’t it? I’ve never worked in a part of tech that was explicitly doing this, but I still feel as though all the current anxiety and uncertainty I myself am currently going through is in some way “earned” by my participation in this industry.
- tptacek 4mo ago
  A lot of things in the technology field's internal debate about AI feel extremely karmic to me.
- arvid-lind 4mo ago
  Really? Not sure if you like to work on your own cars, but would you also feel like you're accumulating negative karma for associating with the automotive and fossil fuel industries? We're not responsible for the world that is here right now, but we have to figure out how to operate within it. The idea that "we earned this" like we're all at fault for the state of things seems pretty far off. Not trying to say you're wrong but long way of saying don't be so hard on yourself, its not like you're Elon, Altman, any of the other awful figures steering our tech world right now.
  - thunky 4mo ago
    I don't think your analogy fits. Tech is directly responsible for automation, which impacts jobs. Tech workers didn't cry moral outrage then. But mow that tech may automate their job, suddenly it's evil.
    - arvid-lind 4mo ago
      My point was that the world we have is here, for better or worse, and "reaping what we sowed" seems like a wildly reductive and self-defeating interpretation. There's no way this guy who says he never worked directly on automation-related tech should feel like he's banking bad karma by earning a living doing the best he can. I'm assuming that not working in automation was a conscious decision, like I've also been very selective about my employers based on their general operating philosophies. The analogy wasn't the best, but the whole of tech isn't on the hook for this. Just like a typical daily driver or someone who works on their own car can't be directly responsible for the climate crisis. There are major players making the decisions that are causing the state we're in.
queenkjuul 4mo ago
Ah yeah, lowly web dev me, self-taught with no capital, is responsible for the choices of faceless corporations and sinister magnates I've never worked for nor interacted with nor influenced in even an infinitesimal way. I've never worked on software that automated someone's job away. But because I'm a programmer at all, it's partially my fault?
- tptacek 4mo ago
  Like everyone else in the industry, you're almost certainly the beneficiary of an industry predicated on automating people's jobs away. Your labor is fungible. Your comp is based on supply and demand. Whatever work you do, you are subsidized in large part by the demands of projects that improve productivity elsewhere in the workforce. I'm not saying you personally set out to take anyone's job away. But our field is unusually well compensated because of its function in the broader marketplace. The point is that moralisms like "fault" don't operate here.
- phil21 4mo ago
  > I've never worked on software that automated someone's job away. I think this would be very difficult to do as a web-dev. The web itself is a form of global scale automation in-itself. I am also a self-taught tech nerd. I have not "directly" worked on any specific automation project in terms of "come put this group out of work" - but I can't think of a single project I worked on that wasn't making current processes more efficient and automated - by largely removing remaining manual steps involved. This is why we exist to begin with, otherwise no one would be paying us to do the work. I wrote software that took server provisioning from a process that involved a tech typing on a keyboard every time, to clicking a button on a webUI to install an OS. A task many here at HN have done just for their home lab environment so as to make their own lives more efficient. This put zero people out of work. But it probably prevented hiring of at last a handful of low-level technicians over the course of that software's lifecycle. Which is the same thing to an industry at large. Even stuff as simple as writing code to put up a new post on a company website is contributing towards automating someone's job away. I have often stated computers are the ultimate robot. They fit in nearly every industry to automate things and make processes more efficient. These are code words for "less human labor needed" - aka less jobs.