Comment by dakolli
8 days ago
Its really weird how you all are begging to be replaced by llms, you think if agentic workflows get good enough you're going to keep your job? Or not have your salary reduced by 50%?
If Agents get good enough it's not going to build some profitable startup for you (or whatever people think they're doing with the llm slot machines) because that implies that anyone else with access to that agent can just copy you, its what they're designed to do... launder IP/Copyright. Its weird to see people get excited for this technology.
None of this good. We are simply going to have our workforces replaced by assets owned by Google, Anthropic and OpenAI. We'll all be fighting for the same barista jobs, or miserable factory jobs. Take note on how all these CEOs are trying to make it sound cool to "go to trade school" or how we need "strong American workers to work in factories".
> Its really weird how you all are begging to be replaced by llms, you think if agentic workflows get good enough you're going to keep your job? Or not have your salary reduced by 50%?
The computer industry (including SW) has been in the business of replacing jobs for decades - since the 70's. It's only fitting that SW engineers finally become the target.
Is that really true? Software created an incredible amount of new types of jobs and markets.
The most gullible workforce ever (FOSS), but seeing Youtube, half the planet is braindead for handing over their craft on a platter for mere dollars.
I think a lot of people assume they will become highly paid Agent orchestrators or some such. I don't think anyone really knows where things are heading.
Why would someone get paid well for this skill? Its not valuable at all.
Highly valuable right now with how high leverage it can make a good engineer. Who knows for how long.
Most folks don't seem to think that far down the line, or they haven't caught on to the reality that the people who actually make decisions will make the obvious kind of decisions (ex: fire the humans, cut the pay, etc) that they already make.
they think they're going to be the person making that decision
but forgot there's likely someone above them making exactly the same one about them
I agree with you and have similar thoughts (maybe, unfortunately for me). I personally know people who outsource not just their work, but also their life to LLMs, and reading their exciting comments makes me feel a mix of cringe, fomo and dread. But what is the engame for me and you likes, when we finally would be evicted from our own craft? Stash money while we still can, watching 'world crash and burn', and then go and try to ascend in some other, not yet automated craft?
Yeah, that's a good question that I can't stop thinking about. I don't really enjoy much else other than building software, its genuinely my favorite thing to do. Maybe there will be a world where we aren't completely replaced, we have handmade clothes still after all that are highly coveted. I just worry its going to uproot more than just software engineering, theoretically it shouldn't be hard to replace all low hanging fruit in the realm of anything that deals with computer I/O. Previous generations of automation have created new opportunities for humans, but this seems mostly just as a means of replacement. The advent of mass transportation/vehicles created machines who needed mechanics (and eventually software), I don't see that happening in this new paradigm.
I don't think that's going to make society very pleasant if everyone's fighting over the few remaining ways to make livelihood. People need to work to eat. I certainly don't see the capitalist class giving everyone UBI and letting us garden or paint for the rest of our lives. I worry we're likely going to end up in trenches or purged through some other means.
If you want to know where it's headed, look at factory workers 40 years ago. Lots of people still work at factories today, they just aren't in the same places they were 40 years ago and now req an entirely different skill set.
The largest ongoing expense of every company is labor and software devs are some of the highest paid labor on the planet. AI will eventually drive down wages for this class of workers most likely by shipping these jobs to people in other countries where labor is much cheaper. Just like factory work did.
Enjoy the good times while they last (or get a job at an AI company).
I’m someone who’d like to deploy a lot more workers than I want to manage.
Put another way, I’m on the capital side of the conversation.
The good news for labor that has experience and creativity is that it just started costing 1/100,000 what it used to to get on that side of the equation.
If LLMs truly cause widespread replacement of labor, you’re screwed just as much as anyone else. If we hit say 40% unemployment do you think people will care you own your home or not? Do you think people will care you have currency or not? The best case outcome will be universal income and a pseudo utopia where everyone does ok. The “bad” scenario is widespread war.
I am one of the “haves” and am not looking forward to the instability this may bring. Literally no one should.
> I am one of the “haves” and am not looking forward to the instability this may bring. Literally no one should.
these people always forget capitalism is permitted to exist by consent of the people
if there's 40% unemployment it won't continue to exist, regardless of what the TV/tiktok/chatgpt says
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Well he also thinks $10.00 in LLM tokens is equivalent to a $1mm labor budget. These are the same people who were grifting during the NFTs days, claiming they were the future of art.
lmao, you are an idealistic moron. If llms can replace labor at 1/100k of the cost (lmfao) why are you looking to "deploy" more workers? So are you trying to say if I have $100.00 in tokens I have the equivalent of $10mm in labor potential.... What kind of statement is this?
This is truly the dumbest statement I've ever seen on this site for too many reasons to list.
You people sound like NFT people in 2021 telling people that they're creating and redefining art.
Oh look peter@capital6.com is a "web3" guy. Its all the same grifters from the NFT days behaving the same way.
I upvoted your comment. Love the confidence. I’ve self funded full venture studios - so I have a pretty good take on costs of innovation. You might say I was poor at deploying innovation capital; you might be right!
Anyway 100k is hyperbolic. But I’d argue just one order of magnitude. Claude max can do many things better than my last (really great) team, and is worse at some things - creative output, relationship building and conference attending most notably. It’s also much faster at the things it is good at. Like 20-50x faster than a person or team.
If I had another venture studio I’d start with an agent first, and fill in labor in the gaps. The costs are wildly different.
Back to you though - who hurt you? Your writing makes me think you are young. You have been given literal super power force extension tech from aliens this year, why not be excited at how much more you can build?
You don't hate AI, you hate capitalism. All the problems you have listed are not AI issues, its this crappy system where efficiency gains always end up with the capital owners.
But the head honchos on ted.com said AI will create more jobs.
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Well I honestly think this is the solution. It's much harder to do French Revolution V2 though if they've used ML to perfect people's recommendation algorithms to psyop them into fighting wars on behalf of capitalists.
I imagine llm job automation will make people so poor that they beg to fight in wars, and instead of turning that energy against he people who created the problem they'll be met with hours of psyops that direct that energy to Chinese people or whatever.
We will see.
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