Comment by kevinsync
1 day ago
I kind of think we will see some industry attrition as a result of LLM coding and agent usage, simply because the ~vIbEs~ I'm witnessing boil down to quite a lot of resistance (for multiple reasons: stubbornness, ethics, exhaustion from the hype cycle, sticking with what you know, etc)
The thing is, they're just tools. You can choose to learn them, or not. They aren't going to make or break your career. People will do fine with and without them.
I do think it's worth learning new tools though, even if you're just a casual observer / conscientious objector -- the world is changing fast, for better or worse, and you'll be better prepared to do anything with a wider breadth of tech skill and experience than with less. And I'm not just talking about writing software for a living, you could go full Uncle Ted and be a farmer or a carpenter or a barista in the middle of nowhere, and you're going to be way better equipped to deal with logistical issues that WILL arise from the very nature of the planet hurtling towards 100% computerization. Inventory management, crop planning, point of sale, marketing, monitoring sensors on your brewery vats, whatever.
Another thought I had was that introverts often blame their deficits in sales, marketing and customer service on their introversion, but what if you could deploy an agent to either guide, perform, or prompt (the human) with some of those activities? I'd argue that it would be worth the time to kick the tires and see what's possible there.
It feels like early times still with some of these pie in the sky ideas, but just because it's not turn-key YET doesn't mean it won't be in the near future. Just food for thought!
"ethics"
I agree with all of your reasons but this one sticks out. Is this a big issue? Are many people refusing to use LLMs due to (I'm guessing here): perceived copyright issues, or power usage, or maybe that they think that automation is unjust?
I can't tell how widespread any of is, to be honest.. mostly because it's anecdata, and impossible to determine if what I'm seeing is just ragebait, or shallow dunks by reply-guys in comment sections, or particularly-loud voices on social media that aren't representative of the majority opinion, etc
That said, the amount of sort-of-thoughtless, I'm-just-repeating-something-I-heard-but-don't-really-understand outrage towards AI that I'm seeing appears to be increasing -- "how many bottles of water did that slop image waste??", "Clanker"-adjacent memes and commentary (include self-driving + robots in this category), people ranting about broligarchs stealing art, music, movies, books to train their models (oddly often while also performatively parroting party lines about how Spotify rips artists off), all the way to refusing to interact with people on dating apps if they have anything AI in their profiles hahaha (file "AI" alongside men holding fish in their pics, and "crypto" lol)
It's all chronically-online nonsense that may well just be perception that's artificially amplified by "the algorithm".
Me, I have no fundamental issue with any of it -- LLMs, like anything else, aren't categorically good or bad. They can be used positively and negatively. Everything we use and consume has hidden downsides and unsavory circumstances.
Yes, people are refusing for those reasons. I don't know how many, but I'd say about half of the the people I know who do not work in tech are rejecting AI, with ethics being the primary reason. That is all just anecdata, but I suspect the tech bubble around AI is making people in tech underestimate how many people in the world simply are not interested in it being part of their lives.