Comment by sp1nningaway
4 hours ago
Here is a very real example of how an LLM can at least save, if not create jobs, and also not take a programmers job:
I work for a cash-strapped nonprofit. We have a business idea that can scale up a service we already offer. The new product is going to need coding, possibly a full-scale app. We don't have any capacity to do it in-house and don't have an easy way to find or afford vendor that can work on this somewhat niche product.
I don't have the time to help develop this product but I'm VERY confident an LLM will be able to deliver what we need faster and at a lower cost than a contractor. This will save money we couldn't afford to gamble on an untested product AND potentially create several positions that don't currently exist in our org to support the new product.
There are ton's of underprivileged college grads or soon to be grads that could really use the experience, and pro bono work for a non profit would look really good on their CVs. Have you considered contacting a local university's CS department? This seems more valuable to society from a non profit's perspective, imo, than giving that money/work to an AI company. Its not like the students don't have access to these tools, and will be able to leverage them more effectively while getting the same outcome for you.
Do you have someone who can babysit and review what the LLM does? Otherwise, I'm not sure we're at the point where you can just tell an agent to go off and build something and it does it _correctly_.
IME, you'll just get demoware if you don't have the time and attention to detail to really manage the process.
But if you could afford to hire a worker for this job, that an LLM would be able to do for a fraction of the cost (by your estimation), then why on earth would you ever waste money on a worker? By extension if you pay a worker and an AI or robot comes along that can do the work for cheaper, then why would you not fire the worker and replace them with the cheaper alternative?
Its kind of funny to see capitalists brains all over this thread desperately try to make it make sense. It's almost like the system is broken, but that can't possibly be right everybody believes in capitalism, everybody can't be wrong. Wake the fuck up.
New people hired for this project would not be coders. They would be an expert in the service we offer, and would be doing work an LLM is not capable of.
I don't know if LLMs would be capable of also doing that job in the future, but my org (a mission-driven non profit) can get very real value from LLMs right now, and it's not a zero-sum value that takes someone's job away.