Technology

Now that you tell me, I think i have heard about that before. It does make a bit of sense, there may be some of both things to this madness. While speculation i value the observation and i will keep it mind, thank you for sharing it.

Stay alive. This is likely going to get much, MUCH worse before getting better.

The difference between this and computers or any innovation and what its prior is the pace of change which determines the social cost. Few would object to innovation if the innovation replaced them as they retired from the workforce instead of forcing them to bear the social cost mid-life. A family, a community, a region that goes through serious deskilling event is't a happy place. All sorts of real measurements of misery and illness go up. So this process isn't popular and frankly it shouldn't be acceptable. The situation we find ourselves in North America, prior to the AI shift, is to a large extent the result of a string of such events. A situation where nearly half the population wants to see the other punished. AI is promising to do a massive shift and quicker than many previous events, including at the uppet end of the payscale.

So yeah, it's not the technology, the innivation. It's how our capitalist systen rolls it out. At what social cost, borne by whom, and whom reaping the upside. AI promises a fast, painful change at a time when everyone is already struggling, without welfare to soften the blow, while concetrating the benefits in fewer hands. Benefits that also translate to power, economic and political. So people rightfully reject this proposition. The tech is getting tarred with it.

The explicit and only goal at my company is to produce 100% of code with ai. They don't care if it's crap. Neither do I.

The more you use it for coding, the worse you get at coding skills. I can feel it already. I'm not a programmer any more. I'm a manager of a hyperactive mid level developer who's overly confident and doesn't ask enough questions.

My favorite is when the ai reviewer in the pr criticizes the code the ai agent wrote. Like ok? It's trash and I don't care. Ignore and hit resolve.

AI can‘t read or write. It processes and computes data in entirely different ways than we do: Based on probability. It doesn‘t understand context at all. We‘ll see how well vibe coding holds up in due time when more of our infrastructure is vibe coded and fewer solutions are actually understood.

as someone who would also reach for a state machine when doing simple parsing... what's the better alternative in python?

i have colleagues for that

It’s devaluating human worth in the workplace. Solid paying jobs will go away. You will still work, you just won’t live as comfortably.

I can't think of a single job it can replace.

Me either and I don't think it ever will reach that. We're already seeing diminishing returns.

The thing is it doesn't need to replace a full job. If it improves productivity by 10% then that's the number that will either lose their job or just not get hired in the first place.

I'm sure these are very worrying times for folks in college, especially computer science and the arts.

UBI seems like the only long term solution to me.

It already has a social impact on the people's whose intellectual property was pirated, the employees traumatized by nsfw filtering tasks and the reduction of white collar junior recruitment. I know some people think it's just a bubble, companies are waiting to see what happens and the job market will recover. I am doubtful of it.
My tech company is pushing us to use it so they provide the top tools. From what I have observed, I have little doubt it will replace a lot of the designing, engineering, coding and communication time. Yes, you will still need some knowledgeable person to guide and review, but less than before. Similarly to how you need less people to build a car today than you did in the 50', and even less for an electric car, because so much more is automated.
So far automation and the internet did create more better paid jobs than it destroyed, maybe it will happen with "AI" too, but I am skeptical.
Finally, in my opinion, UBI and work time reduction with equivalent quality of life is a desirable future.

My insurance provider has already replaced all of its customer service staff with AI. As I found out when I tried to ask them a question the other day. I'm changing insurance companies.

It's going fully replace a LOT of jobs, and as future iterations learn more and more, it will replace even more complex jobs. You are underestimating the Ferengi's compulsion for more wealth. They will let quality slip significantly, if it means higher profits.

In a few years, they be gaslighting us that double digit unemployment is perfectly normal in a healthy, high-tech society.