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The New Coffee Room

  1. TNCR
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  3. The impact of AI on jobs

The impact of AI on jobs

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  • Doctor PhibesD Online
    Doctor PhibesD Online
    Doctor Phibes
    wrote last edited by Doctor Phibes
    #69

    OK, I admit I've just written a performance review, which is just about my least favourite activity in the world. When I say 'written', I copied last year's review and told Copilot to reword it.

    Easy life.

    I was only joking

    1 Reply Last reply
    😁
    • MikM Offline
      MikM Offline
      Mik
      wrote last edited by
      #70

      Mark makes a very valid point about how AI doesn't do everything for you. GIGO. You have to know something about the subject matter and the technology involved, what questions to ask, parameters to provide to get a decent product.

      "You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible." — Thomas Sowell

      1 Reply Last reply
      • MikM Offline
        MikM Offline
        Mik
        wrote last edited by
        #71

        Maybe not such an apocalypse. This pretty much tracks with what I've been thinking.

        https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/ben-horowitz-says-fears-of-an-ai-fueled-job-apocalypse-are-based-on-a-flawed-assumption/ar-AA1VE5cz

        "You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible." — Thomas Sowell

        taiwan_girlT 1 Reply Last reply
        • MikM Mik

          Maybe not such an apocalypse. This pretty much tracks with what I've been thinking.

          https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/ben-horowitz-says-fears-of-an-ai-fueled-job-apocalypse-are-based-on-a-flawed-assumption/ar-AA1VE5cz

          taiwan_girlT Offline
          taiwan_girlT Offline
          taiwan_girl
          wrote last edited by
          #72

          @Mik I agree with you @mik. Humans are pretty adaptable. There have been pretty big changes to the job market over the last couple of hundred years, probably since the "Industrial Revolution". Some jobs go out, new ones come in.

          1 Reply Last reply
          • MikM Offline
            MikM Offline
            Mik
            wrote last edited by
            #73

            Our adaptability is why we are still around, especially in such numbers. Clever little primates, we are.

            "You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible." — Thomas Sowell

            1 Reply Last reply
            • jon-nycJ Offline
              jon-nycJ Offline
              jon-nyc
              wrote last edited by
              #74

              Noah Smith looking at the bright side?

              The whole reason we call them illegal aliens is because they’re subject to our laws.

              1 Reply Last reply
              • HoraceH Offline
                HoraceH Offline
                Horace
                wrote last edited by
                #75

                Well, yes, that's true. The dicey part is when nobody has a job to earn money to spend.

                Education is extremely important.

                1 Reply Last reply
                • jon-nycJ Offline
                  jon-nycJ Offline
                  jon-nyc
                  wrote last edited by
                  #76

                  Exaggeration but funny all the same.

                  The whole reason we call them illegal aliens is because they’re subject to our laws.

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  • HoraceH Offline
                    HoraceH Offline
                    Horace
                    wrote last edited by Horace
                    #77

                    I doubt many coders feel safe now. Not sure where he's getting his impression. At best coders are lumping other white collar jobs in with their own, as jobs at risk of AI disruption.

                    As I write this post, ChatGPT is generating some code it would have taken me an hour to write. Generating it in multiple languages.

                    Education is extremely important.

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    • Doctor PhibesD Online
                      Doctor PhibesD Online
                      Doctor Phibes
                      wrote last edited by
                      #78

                      We have an engineer retiring in May. We just requested a job rec for his replacement, and one of the senior executives who has to give authorization asked whether his job could be replaced by an AI.

                      To be honest, at this point I suspect it would probably be easier to swap out the executive for AI.

                      I was only joking

                      jon-nycJ 1 Reply Last reply
                      • HoraceH Offline
                        HoraceH Offline
                        Horace
                        wrote last edited by
                        #79

                        I never pursued much in the way of technical expertise in coding because everything changed so fast with languages and libraries that I didn't have the energy or motivation to keep up. Now I see I didn't zoom out enough. Coding itself, in all of its forms, was the thing that was going to become obsolete.

                        Education is extremely important.

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        • Doctor PhibesD Doctor Phibes

                          We have an engineer retiring in May. We just requested a job rec for his replacement, and one of the senior executives who has to give authorization asked whether his job could be replaced by an AI.

                          To be honest, at this point I suspect it would probably be easier to swap out the executive for AI.

                          jon-nycJ Offline
                          jon-nycJ Offline
                          jon-nyc
                          wrote last edited by
                          #80

                          @Doctor-Phibes said in The impact of AI on jobs:

                          To be honest, at this point I suspect it would probably be easier to swap out the executive for AI.

                          SAys the manager who uses AI to write his employee reviews.

                          The whole reason we call them illegal aliens is because they’re subject to our laws.

                          Doctor PhibesD 1 Reply Last reply
                          • KlausK Offline
                            KlausK Offline
                            Klaus
                            wrote last edited by
                            #81

                            I for one doubt that good programmers will be out of jobs anytime soon.

                            For once, only programmers can write specifications that are precise enough that AIs can generate code from it.

                            Of course programmers need to learn how to use LLMs to boost their productivity. But we'll also have a much higher demand for software. It's a kind of self-correcting system.

                            What we won't need much anymore are programmers that perform boring repetitive work.

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            • HoraceH Offline
                              HoraceH Offline
                              Horace
                              wrote last edited by
                              #82

                              Vibe coding will advance more and more in line with the promise of its name. What % of professional programmers work from spec currently anyway? I bet most.

                              I see it as imminent that product owners will get together in a meeting room and create an app by talking an AI through it in real time.

                              Education is extremely important.

                              KlausK 1 Reply Last reply
                              • HoraceH Offline
                                HoraceH Offline
                                Horace
                                wrote last edited by
                                #83

                                Humanities academic and public intellectual Yascha Mounk on his experience prompting Claude to write a political theory paper fit for publication in top journals. Spoiler, it took two hours and Yascha thinks it's publishable.

                                https://substack.com/home/post/p-188162035

                                Education is extremely important.

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                • HoraceH Horace

                                  Vibe coding will advance more and more in line with the promise of its name. What % of professional programmers work from spec currently anyway? I bet most.

                                  I see it as imminent that product owners will get together in a meeting room and create an app by talking an AI through it in real time.

                                  KlausK Offline
                                  KlausK Offline
                                  Klaus
                                  wrote last edited by
                                  #84

                                  @Horace said in The impact of AI on jobs:

                                  Vibe coding will advance more and more in line with the promise of its name. What % of professional programmers work from spec currently anyway? I bet most.

                                  I see it as imminent that product owners will get together in a meeting room and create an app by talking an AI through it in real time.

                                  Anthropic had this impressive breakthrough recently where they let 10 Claude agents simultaneously produce code for a C compiler - which is insanely impressive, but if you look at the details you'll see that the "prompt" contained, among other things, thousands of test cases (which is part of the spec).

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  • jon-nycJ jon-nyc

                                    @Doctor-Phibes said in The impact of AI on jobs:

                                    To be honest, at this point I suspect it would probably be easier to swap out the executive for AI.

                                    SAys the manager who uses AI to write his employee reviews.

                                    Doctor PhibesD Online
                                    Doctor PhibesD Online
                                    Doctor Phibes
                                    wrote last edited by
                                    #85

                                    @jon-nyc said in The impact of AI on jobs:

                                    @Doctor-Phibes said in The impact of AI on jobs:

                                    To be honest, at this point I suspect it would probably be easier to swap out the executive for AI.

                                    SAys the manager who uses AI to write his employee reviews.

                                    Strictly speaking, I use it to re-write them in the language of corporate wank, rather than the plain English I typically employ.

                                    What it was:

                                    "John has had a good first year, and it is hoped that he will continue to develop his career."

                                    What it became:

                                    "John has had a highly successful first year, and stakeholders are optimistic that he will continue to leverage his strengths, expand his skill set, and accelerate his professional growth."

                                    If I keep talking like this, they'll be forced to promote me into an even more pointless position than the one I quietly retired from two years ago.

                                    I was only joking

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