Comment by jacquesm
6 days ago
Not without some major breakthrough. What's hilarious is that all these developers building the tools are going to be the first to be without jobs. Their kids will be ecstatic: "Tell me again, dad, so, you had this awesome and well paying easy job and you wrecked it? Shut up kid, and tuck in that flap, there is too much wind in our cardboard box."
Couldn't agree more, isn't that the bizarre thing? "We have this great intellectually challenging job where we as workers have leverage. How can we completely ruin that while also screwing up every other white collar profession"
Why is it bizarre? It is inevitable. After all, AI has not ruined creative professions, it merely disrupted and transformed them. And yes, I fully understand my whole comment here being snarky, but please bear with me.
Let's rewind 4 years to this HN article titled "The AI Art Apocalypse": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34856326
> [...] Artists will still exist, but most likely as hybrid 3d-modellers, AI modelers (Not full programmers, but able to fine-tune models with online guides and setups, can read basic python), and storytellers (like manga artists). It'll be a higher-pay, higher-prestige, higher-skill-requirement job than before. And all those artists who devoted their lives to draw better, find this to be an incredibly brutal adjustment.
Again, replace "Artists" with coders and fill in the replacement.
So, please get in line and adapt. And stop clinging to your "great intellectually challenging job" because you are holding back progress. It can't be that challenging if it can be handled by a machine anyway.
The premise of those comments, just like the premise in this thread, is ridiculous and fantastical.
The only way generative AI has changed the creative arts is that it's made it easier to produce low quality slop.
I would not call that a true transformation. I'd call that saving costs at the expense of quality.
The same is true of software. The difference is, unlike art, quality in software has very clear safety and security implications.
This gen AI hype is just the crypto hype all over again but with a sci-fi twist in the narrative. It's a worse form of work just like crypto was a worse form of money.
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> It is inevitable.
Is it though? I agree the technology evolving is inevitable, but, the race/rush to throw as much money at scaling and marketing as possible before these things are profitable and before society is ready is not inevitable at all. It feels extremely forced. And the way it's being shoved into every product to juice usage numbers seems to agree with me that it's all premature and rushed and most people don't really want it. The bubble is essentially from investing way more money in datacenters and GPU's than they can even possibly pay for or build, and there's no evidence there's even a market for using that capacity!
It's funny you bring up artists, because I used to work in game development and I've worked with a lot of artists, and they almost universally HATE this stuff. They're not like "oh thank you Mr. Altman", they're more like "if we catch you using AI we'll shun you." And it's not just producers, a lot of gamers are calling out games that are made using AI, so the customers are mad too.
You keep talking about "progress", but "progress" towards what exactly? So far these things aren't making anything new or advancing civilization, they're remixing stuff we already did well before, but sloppily. I'm not saying they don't have a place -- they definitely do, they can be useful. My argument is against the bizarre hype machine and what sometimes seems like sock puppets on social media. If the marketting was just "hey, we have this neat AI, come use it" I think there'd be a lot less backlash then people saying "Get in line and adapt"
> And stop clinging to your "great intellectually challenging job" because you are holding back progress.
Man, I really wish I had the power you think I have. Also, I use these tools daily, I'm deeply familiar with them, I'm not holding back anyone's progress, not even my own. That doesn't mean I think they're beyond criticism or that the companies behind them are acting responsibly, or that every product is great. I plan to be part of the future, but I'm not just going to pretend like I think every part of it is brilliant.
> It can't be that challenging if it can be handled by a machine anyway.
This will be really funny when it comes for your job.
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I have a feeling they internally say "not me, I won't be replaced" and just keep moving...
Or they get FY money and fatFIRE.
Still risky if you have no labor value anymore.
I'm assuming they all have enough equity that if they actually managed to build an AI capable of replacing themselves they'll be financially set for the rest of their lives.
"Well son, we made a lot of shareholder value."
Is it the first time when workers directly work on their own replacement? If so, software developer may go down in history as the dumbest profession ever.