4 ms·

I got into programming and computers due to their intellectual depth, and the exciting opportunities they opened to explore everything from electronics to obscu

by biofox 3mo ago

I got into programming and computers due to their intellectual depth, and the exciting opportunities they opened to explore everything from electronics to obscure areas of mathematics... through to theory of mind and the dream of making silicon think. The combination of endless trend-chasing, software churn, and techbro culture made me hate everything about software, so I jumped ship to biology.

zelphirkalt 3mo ago
Well, and now with the push towards AI slop and letting agents do work for you, it is even less about creativity and talent. You can't even chase trends in libraries while still being clever about it any longer, you gotta chase more and more braindead ways of getting code generated based on tons and tons of mediocre code found online, gobbled up by big tech without the original creator s' consent.
- zozbot234 3mo ago
  I think that plenty of 'nerds' would very much disagree about that. Steering agents effectively is something that can take massive amounts of creativity and talent and be quite helpful wrt. the final result. There's no real analogue of this in traditional programming.
  - nearlyepic 3mo ago
    You keep telling yourself that.
  - marmarama 3mo ago
    Sure there's an analogue. It's being the tech lead of a team of junior to mid level developers. You design roughly what the solution should look like, split it into reasonable sized tasks so they don't go off the deep end, advise them on some of the details, then assign them the tasks and let them get on with it, keeping an eye on what they're doing, reviewing their output, and course correcting them when they go wrong. Just like with a team of humans, you have to use your judgement as to how much supervision they need individually and how large a task you can give them without them going off the rails.
    - anygivnthursday 3mo ago
      Thats my thought as well, LLM agents put you in the role of a (often micromanaging) tech/team lead of a small team, but the speed and fast feedback loop makes it look different.
      - fragmede 3mo ago
        Oh it's different alright. Yell at a human employee to tell them they're a fucking loser enough times and at best they'll quit on you. The way some people talk to their LLM is ghastly.
        anygivnthursday 3mo ago
        And there are also papers that tell thats effective https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.04950 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.04950
    - eequah9L 3mo ago
      Hm, on each interview since ever, every time the inevitable "where do you see yourself in X years" question popped up, I was like, I have no ambition of getting promoted to managers, if that's what you mean. I like coding. I want to keep coding. I can advise juniors if _that's_ what you mean. But I want to code. And here I am. Coding is becoming management in front of my eyes. Meh :-|
    - jimbokun 3mo ago
      Yes. As AI improves every white collar job becomes a management job. With the previous conception of an Individual Contributor role disappearing.
      - anygivnthursday 3mo ago
        And isnt that management job also tomorrow's disappearing IC role? A management agent seems quite possible to me.
  - pjmlp 3mo ago
    Sure there is, offshoring, now the chat window is with my computer instead on the other side of the planet. Not everyone wants to be a team lead not doing coding any longer.
    - tripledry 3mo ago
      Also, I'd rather lead a team of humans that I can interact and talk with in real life instead of a team of bots.
  - jimbokun 3mo ago
    How so? The models get better and better at understanding the intent of a prompt and doing more useful work with less intervention.
- jimbokun 3mo ago
  The problem was very few nerds realized this was the most likely outcome as they devoted themselves to improving machine intelligence.
  - lossyalgo 3mo ago
    And yet even more nerds than ever are devoting themselves to AI. I just wonder - to what end?
    - pesus 3mo ago
      The phrase "fuck you, I got mine" comes to mind. The logical end seems to be another case of pulling up the ladder behind them as they climb up, others be damned. Sadly seems to be a pretty universal human trait, whether intentional or not.
      - yuye 3mo ago
        I'm a SWE, helping build AI infrastructure. I get where you're coming from, but I haven't "got mine", at least not yet. I'm still relatively early in my career. If AI fulfills its promise, I might lose my job. If the bubble bursts, I'll definitely lose my job. For now, it's where the money is. I'd like to make money now so that I won't have a completely horrible time if things ever take a turn for the worse.
    - jimbokun 3mo ago
      It’s the only path for being able to pay your rent or mortgage without leaving the technology field altogether.
jimbokun 3mo ago
> ... through to theory of mind and the dream of making silicon think. I think part of your naiveté was thinking this goal was likely to turn out as a net benefit for humanity. Maybe it eventually will. But the current scenario was always the most likely scenario for machines rivaling or surpassing humans in intelligence.

by biofox 3mo ago

zelphirkalt 3mo ago

Well, and now with the push towards AI slop and letting agents do work for you, it is even less about creativity and talent. You can't even chase trends in libraries while still being clever about it any longer, you gotta chase more and more braindead ways of getting code generated based on tons and tons of mediocre code found online, gobbled up by big tech without the original creator s' consent.

zozbot234 3mo ago
I think that plenty of 'nerds' would very much disagree about that. Steering agents effectively is something that can take massive amounts of creativity and talent and be quite helpful wrt. the final result. There's no real analogue of this in traditional programming.
- nearlyepic 3mo ago
  You keep telling yourself that.
- marmarama 3mo ago
  Sure there's an analogue. It's being the tech lead of a team of junior to mid level developers. You design roughly what the solution should look like, split it into reasonable sized tasks so they don't go off the deep end, advise them on some of the details, then assign them the tasks and let them get on with it, keeping an eye on what they're doing, reviewing their output, and course correcting them when they go wrong. Just like with a team of humans, you have to use your judgement as to how much supervision they need individually and how large a task you can give them without them going off the rails.
  - anygivnthursday 3mo ago
    Thats my thought as well, LLM agents put you in the role of a (often micromanaging) tech/team lead of a small team, but the speed and fast feedback loop makes it look different.
    - fragmede 3mo ago
      Oh it's different alright. Yell at a human employee to tell them they're a fucking loser enough times and at best they'll quit on you. The way some people talk to their LLM is ghastly.
      - anygivnthursday 3mo ago
        And there are also papers that tell thats effective https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.04950 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.04950
  - eequah9L 3mo ago
    Hm, on each interview since ever, every time the inevitable "where do you see yourself in X years" question popped up, I was like, I have no ambition of getting promoted to managers, if that's what you mean. I like coding. I want to keep coding. I can advise juniors if _that's_ what you mean. But I want to code. And here I am. Coding is becoming management in front of my eyes. Meh :-|
  - jimbokun 3mo ago
    Yes. As AI improves every white collar job becomes a management job. With the previous conception of an Individual Contributor role disappearing.
    - anygivnthursday 3mo ago
      And isnt that management job also tomorrow's disappearing IC role? A management agent seems quite possible to me.
- pjmlp 3mo ago
  Sure there is, offshoring, now the chat window is with my computer instead on the other side of the planet. Not everyone wants to be a team lead not doing coding any longer.
  - tripledry 3mo ago
    Also, I'd rather lead a team of humans that I can interact and talk with in real life instead of a team of bots.
- jimbokun 3mo ago
  How so? The models get better and better at understanding the intent of a prompt and doing more useful work with less intervention.
jimbokun 3mo ago
The problem was very few nerds realized this was the most likely outcome as they devoted themselves to improving machine intelligence.
- lossyalgo 3mo ago
  And yet even more nerds than ever are devoting themselves to AI. I just wonder - to what end?
  - pesus 3mo ago
    The phrase "fuck you, I got mine" comes to mind. The logical end seems to be another case of pulling up the ladder behind them as they climb up, others be damned. Sadly seems to be a pretty universal human trait, whether intentional or not.
    - yuye 3mo ago
      I'm a SWE, helping build AI infrastructure. I get where you're coming from, but I haven't "got mine", at least not yet. I'm still relatively early in my career. If AI fulfills its promise, I might lose my job. If the bubble bursts, I'll definitely lose my job. For now, it's where the money is. I'd like to make money now so that I won't have a completely horrible time if things ever take a turn for the worse.
  - jimbokun 3mo ago
    It’s the only path for being able to pay your rent or mortgage without leaving the technology field altogether.

jimbokun 3mo ago

> ... through to theory of mind and the dream of making silicon think. I think part of your naiveté was thinking this goal was likely to turn out as a net benefit for humanity. Maybe it eventually will. But the current scenario was always the most likely scenario for machines rivaling or surpassing humans in intelligence.