I haven't been this excited about tech since I set up my first home server 20+ years ago. And Claude doesn't sounds like an always-on vacuum cleaner (it was a decommissioned proliant).
Perhaps this would be far more exciting if I were younger. But right now I'm just trying to figure out if I can survive.
I find it great for experiments to throw away but I wish everyone remembered step 2 more often.
The end result for me has been that I am now a gatekeeper trying to prevent AI slop making its way into systems which I care about, and failing, and getting dragged into meetings with my boss about how my performance has gone down now that I'm chained to this stupid thing and forced to use it for even the most trivial tasks.
I haven't been this upset with PayPal mafia overlords since crypto.
Those problems are much worse in languages other than English, by the way. I'm not a native speaker but I always interact with LLMs in English because their prose in Italian is terrible, it often reads as though the text had been written in English and then translated.
Obviously there's nothing wrong with each of those stylistic elements in abstract, exactly like there's nothing wrong with em-dashes or the word "absolutely", but I would argue that writing well means choosing styles that match the content; what LLMs appear to be doing instead is forcing the message into a default pattern, which we percieve as forced and therefore tend to dislike.
To be clear: their writing is fine. The primary goal of writing is to convey meaning, and LLMs have been perfectly adequate at that pretty much from day one. I can get over their quirks.
The bar I set was "significantly higher quality than the median literate native speaker".
The bar you're setting is expert use of metaphors, restrained use of bullets and tables and parataxis, proper emphasis, and avoiding dense technical prose.
I suspect you have a higher opinion of the median literate speaker than is warranted.
It is worse because it fails to communicate information well. When I say it can barely speak English, I mean that it produces sentences which are incomprehensible on the first few reads. I have never found the median literate native speaker to be so difficult to understand, partly because they use a limited vocabulary and avoid waffle.
It can barely speak English in a new and exciting way, one unlike all the previous humans who could barely speak English.
Most people write quite badly!
I believe the median person who comprehends English to PIAAC level 3 literacy or above, and writes accordingly, would be more comprehensible than an LLM, if we controlled for correctness and for their own understanding of the subject matter.
Over time, I suspect both human and AI writing will 'converge'. Humans are good at adopting/imitating language from a variety of sources, so I won't be surprised when we start using "load-bearing" in conversation. Simultaneously, LLMs will start sounding more natural.
"Electronic drudgery" is how I earn my income which pays for my food and shelter. That's why I'm not excited.
There is nothing fun about programming anymore. The joy is completely gone. I would switch careers if I could make money elsewhere.
I can't get myself to stop finding it terrifying
When I think about my future I am scared. Not uncertain. Not merely anxious. Definitely not excited. I'm quite frightened.
In fairness, I think I'm a bit of an outlier. I already felt my place in society was fairly tenuous. I struggle to make friends. I don't feel I fit in very well. I've never managed to stick at one job for more than a few years. The one thing I'm really quite good at is building software and that's let me stay afloat and thrive somewhat
And that's going to go away. And I'm nowhere near close to retiring.
So no. I'm probably not going to find a way to let my anger give way to curiosity any time soon. I feel under threat and I am scared for my personal future safety and security.
Is this my fault for placing too many of my eggs in one basket? Yeah probably. I regret it a lot. If I could go back in time I would have chosen a different profession and branched into software instead of being all software all the time.
I'm trying to tell myself it's not too late to branch out now, but it's been very difficult
So.. I dunno. I can appreciate what the article is saying, and I think it's probably accurate and useful for other people who are more secure than I am, but... Eh.
I guess I just hope people realize that people like me are out there, not just uncertain but AI is shaping up to be the blow that knocks us off the bridge and into the water
I don’t really think that AI will destroy the field of software development, but there’s a constant sense of urgency underlying every working hour where I have to second guess whether I’m using the tools right and how much longer they’re even going to need a human in the loop (my gut says forever, but I’ve been wrong before …)
If I could go back in time, I would pick a different career. I’ve learned that I value consistency and predictability in my life, and tech is clearly not where you’re going to find that. If this was just a hobby, AI would be a godsend. But I always saw software development as my ticket to a decent life, and I’m left guessing everyday whether that ticket is still valid.
Not at all. I'm in the same boat. The first ten year of being a developer you could see things happening miles away. There was a predictable process. Someone builds a new framework. You do some tutorials, kick the tires. Then it eventually starts showing up in small corp projects, then bigger projects or its dropped in favor of a newer framework, app, platform.
Now? Its all gas no brakes. Just shove AI into everything. No vetting, no testing, just shove it into everything and see what happens. This is not software development to me - this is sprinting towards a brick wall.
I would recommend the same thing I'm doing. Branch out, network like crazy. Talk to people about your skills and see if what else is out there. Look at going into adjacent fields, etc. When I went through the first dot com bust and then the 08' crash? The only thing that saved me was networking. I had a few friends that I was talking to who were getting me interviews and telling me about openings that weren't being published.
Keep your shoulder to the wind and keep pushing, there's light at the end of this, I just don't know how long the tunnel is.
> I would recommend the same thing I'm doing. Branch out, network like crazy
I have been very bad at making friends and networking throughout my life, but it's something I'm working on. Appreciate the clarity that I am probably doing the right thing
I have pretty similar feelings to what you are going through.
I was so stressed like seven or eight months ago that for two weeks I was constantly sleep deprived. Then I just asked myself "What is the worst that can happen?" The answer helped me relax a bit. I will just move to some small village somewhere, open a shop for anything and get by. Life will go on.
I seriously think software is / was hard. That means people that thrived in it were smart and disciplined.
And which other profession has so much change? My father is a civil engineer. The tools and formulas he uses has not changed in 50 years while I have to pick up whatever hype tech is asked of me. Many people are similar to me. So we are very adaptable in my most honest opinion.
If it comes to _worst of it_, smart and adaptable people is where I would put my bet on being able to find their footing in the new world.
Righteous anger is a healthy and natural response. Those who admonish others to "be curious", to "wait and see", to "be rational" often have an agenda.
Like this author who is invested in AI.
Right-wing minded people are often fine with you being angry at people. As long as you don’t look up.
> We have access to magic machines, and we can poke at them and see what happens. The second way is to feel genuine excitement. Once you move beyond curiosity, you can come away with a newfound feeling of power and freedom.
Brother, these self-improvement speeches where you shift your frame of mind from half-empty to half-full to thinking of the aswesome potential of the negative space of the cup are supposed to be held on a weekend on some retreat in front of people who have their basal needs met and have the psychological constitution of someone who knows that they have decades left in them for their job or career unless they get hit and disfigured by a car. They are not fit for people who have been told, oh maybe you will never have a job again ever after six months, two years,—who knows?
> A lot of the gains from AI aren’t turning into productivity gains that are reflected in company profits but they’re showing up instead in the number of side projects shipped by everybody not on their company’s time.
You might be out of that thing that put food on the table in the long run. But right now you can use the mAgiC mAchIne to make side projects, ya know? What?
What kind of a GitHub-star poisoned response is that? Log off the green checkmarks for a few days, please.