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I'm not necessarily concerned that I will be entirely without a job because of AI. What I am concerned with is that the aspects of my job that I derive pleasur

I'm not necessarily concerned that I will be entirely without a job because of AI. What I am concerned with is that the aspects of my job that I derive pleasure from will be replaced by AI.

foobar_______ 3y ago
Part of me can definitely sympathize with this feeling. Part of me thinks "lol our job is to provide business value using the tool that is software. Not 'getting enjoyment' out of manually twiddling bits." This is just a new layer of abstraction - I'm sure all the old school computer engineers felt slighted when the new software guys didnt even have to know how to solder flipflops and transitors together.
endorphine 3y ago
Can you provide some examples of aspects of your work that you're concerned about?
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  I enjoy learning about the design philosophy behind an API, or diving into a library to learn the "off the beaten path" workflows. That's where the magic optimizations or shortcuts live. So far, copilot just shows me the happiest path options for everything I've tried, and really falls over when it's not something that "Well this API looks like API_functionCall, so your query for <get X> must look like API_getX". It rarely does.
- cyrialize 3y ago
  Slightly related - there was a Reddit post about a person lamenting the changes in their job. [0] They make 3D models and they greatly enjoyed making models from scratch and taking 2-3 weeks to do so. Now with AI, they use tools to create a model - and then spend 2-3 days to update it. This is a productivity improvement, but it also took away a key thing they loved about their job. There isn't really a solution here at all, and the poster wasn't looking for solutions either. Just venting. We'll be seeing this more in the future, and I wouldn't be surprised if multiple people change careers over it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35308498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35308498
thriftwy 3y ago
You cannot in good conscience be wishing to do menial tasks for a living, that AI can do for you and instead of you. That's how doing manual search and replace instead of search/replace in editor or computing stuff in spreadsheet by hand instead of using formulas. If you think AI's output is suboptimal, right. Maybe find a way to use/train AI better to produce good enough output. But simply wishing to out-robot a robot is pointless.
- davisoneee 3y ago
  I think the parent's point is the exact opposite of what you have argued against. The author is saying they are afraid 'robots' will come for the fun stuff, rather than only being a tool for the menial labour. Think of the recent generative AI artwork...rather than drawing, and creating, (some/most?) artists fear just being prompt-carvers. The fun of the art has been replaced with menial labour of crafting prompts.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    I wonder how "artsy" kids growing up today feel. Getting good at visual arts takes a lot of time and practice and it must be very discouraging when your best output is easily beaten by a guy typing "some flowers in a vase in the style of Van Gogh" into Dall-E.
  - flandish 3y ago
    As an actual meatspace maker of oil paintings - AI excites me. Someone can make a print generated by AI - and it will be beautiful I am sure. So when someone wants a physical panting with impasto texture and painterly strokes… the “real” painters will for sure still make bank. I mean - not me: I have only panted for 8 years and still “suck” - but I love it. But Thomas McKnight will still paint his beautiful scenes and people will still buy them for what they are: art. AI art is art. Meatspace art is art. Heck: I code for money. CODE is art. Software is art.
  - Herval_freire 3y ago
    Fearful of becoming a prompt carver? Let's be real, that is the least of their fears. Fearful that a prompt carver can replace 10 artists is the more realistic fear here. That is the essential trajectory being plotted out by this technology and the trajectory described by the article.
gaoshan 3y ago
So far (super early days, I know) the main thing I've used AI for at work is to write tests for code I'm working on. I get to do the fun bit, solving the problem space, and the AI gets to do the tedious bit (and do it faster than I would). I'm liking at least that level of AI integration.
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  This is the one that is most scary to me as a user of software. Have the AI write some of the code, sure. But tests have to be correct. Autogenerating a mountain of mostly-correct tests strikes me as a great way of ending up with surprising behavior that is a nightmare to untangle.
  - gaoshan 3y ago
    Of course I validate the tests. I get it to churn them out then go over them to make sure everything is sane and covered as expected. I'm surprised that people would assume otherwise.
  - regularfry 3y ago
    I've done a few rounds of "here is a spec. Write tests for it." ... "Here are some tests. Write an implementation which passes them." That gets me checking the tests in the middle so I can fix them up if I need to.
  - ISL 3y ago
    It seems that the more useful way to use AI would be TDD, where you write the tests and perhaps a simple implementation, and AI makes the implementation good/fast and points out inconsistency in the tests.
  - webstrand 3y ago
    That's not necessarily true. For instance snapshot testing, although there may be edge cases missed, the cases cannot be correct or incorrect. Or you could have the AI write test cases (writing them out is often the most laborious part) and then validate them by hand. That'd be little different than writing them yourself, though again edge cases may be missed. You just skip the un-fun part of repetitively typing out the code for each case.
flandish 3y ago
This is important. Our relationship with those who pay is for labor is indeed “sold” as “do something you love and …” and frankly that does help people over time. I love coding. Enough that I don’t want to age into being a director/manager, etc. But what is important to understand is that from the other direction the owners of business only care about profit - they don’t care abt your love for parts of your work, except when they can gaslight and use it to keep you working. For them. Remember when Dwight Scrute got 13 “employee of the month” awards in a single year because he got 2 in February in lieu of a raise? That’s what I mean. AI will be used by owners to either gaslight your love into using it for them, or possible remove what you love to be replaced by AI. Which, for the record, is not “intelligent” any more than anything else in code. Anything implemented is either to gaslight our love for this industry for profit, or to replace parts for profit. It is no surprise at all.

I'm not necessarily concerned that I will be entirely without a job because of AI. What I am concerned with is that the aspects of my job that I derive pleasure from will be replaced by AI.

foobar_______ 3y ago

Part of me can definitely sympathize with this feeling. Part of me thinks "lol our job is to provide business value using the tool that is software. Not 'getting enjoyment' out of manually twiddling bits." This is just a new layer of abstraction - I'm sure all the old school computer engineers felt slighted when the new software guys didnt even have to know how to solder flipflops and transitors together.

endorphine 3y ago

Can you provide some examples of aspects of your work that you're concerned about?

jvanderbot 3y ago
I enjoy learning about the design philosophy behind an API, or diving into a library to learn the "off the beaten path" workflows. That's where the magic optimizations or shortcuts live. So far, copilot just shows me the happiest path options for everything I've tried, and really falls over when it's not something that "Well this API looks like API_functionCall, so your query for <get X> must look like API_getX". It rarely does.
cyrialize 3y ago
Slightly related - there was a Reddit post about a person lamenting the changes in their job. [0] They make 3D models and they greatly enjoyed making models from scratch and taking 2-3 weeks to do so. Now with AI, they use tools to create a model - and then spend 2-3 days to update it. This is a productivity improvement, but it also took away a key thing they loved about their job. There isn't really a solution here at all, and the poster wasn't looking for solutions either. Just venting. We'll be seeing this more in the future, and I wouldn't be surprised if multiple people change careers over it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35308498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35308498

thriftwy 3y ago

You cannot in good conscience be wishing to do menial tasks for a living, that AI can do for you and instead of you. That's how doing manual search and replace instead of search/replace in editor or computing stuff in spreadsheet by hand instead of using formulas. If you think AI's output is suboptimal, right. Maybe find a way to use/train AI better to produce good enough output. But simply wishing to out-robot a robot is pointless.

davisoneee 3y ago
I think the parent's point is the exact opposite of what you have argued against. The author is saying they are afraid 'robots' will come for the fun stuff, rather than only being a tool for the menial labour. Think of the recent generative AI artwork...rather than drawing, and creating, (some/most?) artists fear just being prompt-carvers. The fun of the art has been replaced with menial labour of crafting prompts.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  I wonder how "artsy" kids growing up today feel. Getting good at visual arts takes a lot of time and practice and it must be very discouraging when your best output is easily beaten by a guy typing "some flowers in a vase in the style of Van Gogh" into Dall-E.
- flandish 3y ago
  As an actual meatspace maker of oil paintings - AI excites me. Someone can make a print generated by AI - and it will be beautiful I am sure. So when someone wants a physical panting with impasto texture and painterly strokes… the “real” painters will for sure still make bank. I mean - not me: I have only panted for 8 years and still “suck” - but I love it. But Thomas McKnight will still paint his beautiful scenes and people will still buy them for what they are: art. AI art is art. Meatspace art is art. Heck: I code for money. CODE is art. Software is art.
- Herval_freire 3y ago
  Fearful of becoming a prompt carver? Let's be real, that is the least of their fears. Fearful that a prompt carver can replace 10 artists is the more realistic fear here. That is the essential trajectory being plotted out by this technology and the trajectory described by the article.

gaoshan 3y ago

So far (super early days, I know) the main thing I've used AI for at work is to write tests for code I'm working on. I get to do the fun bit, solving the problem space, and the AI gets to do the tedious bit (and do it faster than I would). I'm liking at least that level of AI integration.

UncleMeat 3y ago
This is the one that is most scary to me as a user of software. Have the AI write some of the code, sure. But tests have to be correct. Autogenerating a mountain of mostly-correct tests strikes me as a great way of ending up with surprising behavior that is a nightmare to untangle.
- gaoshan 3y ago
  Of course I validate the tests. I get it to churn them out then go over them to make sure everything is sane and covered as expected. I'm surprised that people would assume otherwise.
- regularfry 3y ago
  I've done a few rounds of "here is a spec. Write tests for it." ... "Here are some tests. Write an implementation which passes them." That gets me checking the tests in the middle so I can fix them up if I need to.
- ISL 3y ago
  It seems that the more useful way to use AI would be TDD, where you write the tests and perhaps a simple implementation, and AI makes the implementation good/fast and points out inconsistency in the tests.
- webstrand 3y ago
  That's not necessarily true. For instance snapshot testing, although there may be edge cases missed, the cases cannot be correct or incorrect. Or you could have the AI write test cases (writing them out is often the most laborious part) and then validate them by hand. That'd be little different than writing them yourself, though again edge cases may be missed. You just skip the un-fun part of repetitively typing out the code for each case.

flandish 3y ago

This is important. Our relationship with those who pay is for labor is indeed “sold” as “do something you love and …” and frankly that does help people over time. I love coding. Enough that I don’t want to age into being a director/manager, etc. But what is important to understand is that from the other direction the owners of business only care about profit - they don’t care abt your love for parts of your work, except when they can gaslight and use it to keep you working. For them. Remember when Dwight Scrute got 13 “employee of the month” awards in a single year because he got 2 in February in lieu of a raise? That’s what I mean. AI will be used by owners to either gaslight your love into using it for them, or possible remove what you love to be replaced by AI. Which, for the record, is not “intelligent” any more than anything else in code. Anything implemented is either to gaslight our love for this industry for profit, or to replace parts for profit. It is no surprise at all.