Comment by phil21
2 months ago
Yeah, this is why I'm having a hard time taking many programmers serious on this one.
As a general class of folks, programmers and technologists have been putting people out of work via automation since we existed. We justified it via many ways, but generally "if I can replace you with a small shell script, your job shouldn't exist anyways and you can do something more productive instead". These same programmers would look over the shoulder of "business process" and see how folks did their jobs - "stealing" the workflows and processes so they could be automated.
Now that programmers jobs are on the firing block all of a sudden automation is bad. It's hard to sort through genuine vs. self-serving concern here.
It's more or less a case of what comes around goes around to me so far.
I don't think LLMs are great or problem free - or even that the training data set scraped from the Internet is moral or not. I just find the reaction to be incredibly hypocritical.
Learn to prompt, I guess?
If we're talking the response from the OP, people of his caliber are not in any danger of being automated away, it was an entirely reasonable revulsion at an LLM in his inbox in a linguist skinsuit, a mockery of a thank-you email.
I don't see the connection to handling the utilitarianism of implementing business logic. Would anyone find a thank-you email from an LLM to be of any non-negative value, no matter how specific or accurate in its acknowledgement it was? Isn't it beyond uncanny valley and into absurdism to have your calculator send you a Christmas card?
To be clear, my comment was in no way intended towards Rob Pike or anyone of his stature and contributions to the technology field.
It was definitely a less-than-useful comment directed towards the tech bro types that came later when the money started getting good.
People of his caliber is not being automated away but people pay less attention to him and don’t worship him like before so he is butt hurt.
Are people here objecting to Gen AI being used to take their jobs? I mainly see people objecting to the social, legal, and environmental consequences.
What's the problem with that, anyway? I object to training a machine to take/change my job [building them, telling them what to do]. What's more, they want me to pay? Hah. This isn't a charity. I either strike fortune, retire while the getting is good, or simply work harder for nothing. Hmm. I think I'll keep not displacing people, actually. Myself included.
To GP: not all of us who automate go for low hanging fruit, I guess.
To the peer calling this illegitimate [or anyone, really]: without the assistance of an LLM, please break down the foul nature of... let me check my notes, gainful employment.
> Are people here objecting to Gen AI being used to take their jobs?
Yes, even if they don't say it. The other objections largely come from the need to sound more legitimate.
Let me get this straight. You think Rob Pike, is worried about his job being taken? Do you know who he is?
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This is a stance that violates tha guidelines of HN.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Gen AI taking programmer's jobs is 20 years away.
At the moment, it's just for taking money from gullible investors.
Its eating into business letters, essays and indie art generation but programming is a really tough cookie to crack.
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Must be nice to read people's minds and use that info in an argument. Tough to beat.
>programmers and technologists have been putting people out of work
I think it's more causing people to do different work. There used to be about 75% of the workforce in agriculture but tractors and the like reduced that to 2% or so. I'm not sure if the people working as programers would be better off if that didn't happen and they were digging potatoes.
I wouldn't be angry if current AI _only_ automated programmers/software engineers. I'd be worried and stressed out, but not angry.
But it also automates _everything else_. Art and self-expression, most especially. And it did so in a way that is really fucking disgusting.
Well put, it's not the automation of programming that bothers me, it's the automation of what it means to be human.
Very elegantly put.
> Now that programmers jobs are on the firing block all of a sudden automation is bad. It's hard to sort through genuine vs. self-serving concern here.
The concern is bigger than developer jobs being automated. The stated goal of the tech oligarchs is to create AGI so most labor is no longer needed, while CEOs and board members of major companies get unimaginably wealthy. And their digital gods allow them to carve up nations into fiefdoms for the coming techno fascist societies they envision.
I want no part of that.