imagine getting first replaced by some kid out of a garage, then by indian code farms and now by ai developed by the grown up kids from said garage and trained by indian code farms.
So tired of this rhetoric. AI isn't replacing any software engineering jobs, nor could it. It's a joke, quite frankly.
They set up a ChatGPT based bot at my work just to help our support agents find information faster. It provides straight up factually false information 80% of the time. A solid 30% of the time, it says the opposite of the truth. It’s completely worthless at all times.
It was impossible for a computer to be smart enough to beat grandmasters at chess, until it wasn't. It was impossible to beat Go Masters at Go, until it wasn't.
No software engineering jobs are getting replaced this year or next year. But considering the rapid pace of AI development, and considering how much code development is just straight up redundant... looking at 20 years from now, it's not so bright.
It would be way better to start putting AI legislation in place this year. That or it's time to start transitioning to UBI.
I am an actual (senior) software engineer, with a background in ML to boot.
I would start to worry if we were anywhere close to even dreaming of how AGI might actually work, but we're not. It's purely in the realm of science fiction. Until you meet the bar of AGI, there's absolutely no risk of software engineering jobs being replaced.
Go or Chess are games with a fixed and simple ruleset and are very suited to what computers are really good at. Software engineering is the art of making the ambiguous and ill-defined into something entirely unambiguous and precisely defined, and that is something we are so far from achieving in computers it's not even funny. ML is ultimately just applied statistics. It's not magic, and it's far from anything we would consider "intelligence".
I do think we need legislation targeting ML, but not because of "omg our jobs". Rather we need legislation to combat huge tech companies vacuuming any and all data on the general public and using that data to manipulate and control the public.
Also, LOL at "how much code development is straight up redundant". If you think development amounts to just writing a bunch of boilerplate as though we were some kind of assembly line putting together the same thing over and over again, you're sorely mistaken.
I think you overestimate what the average software developer is doing.
Do I think in 10 years ai will be patching the Linux kernel or optimizing aws scaling functions, no. Do I think it will be creating functional crud apps with Django or Ruby on rails, yes, and I think that's what a large amount of software developers are doing. Even if it's not a majority a lot of the more precarious developers without a cs degree will probably lose their job. Not every developer is a senior engineer working on ML.
I was listening to a podcast about AI. I think it was one of Ezra Kleins. And he was telling a story that he heard, bout those weird virtual reality games from the 90s or early Aughts. And people shat on those games because they were awful and clunky and not very good so that shitting was well deserved. But one guy was like "yeah, that's all true. But this is the worst it's going to be. The next iteration isn't going to be worse than this."
And that's where AI is now. Like, it's powerful and already a threat to certain jobs. GPT 3/4 may be useless to software engineering jobs now (I'd argue that it's not - I work in a related field and I use it about daily) but what about GPT 5? 6? 10?
Im not as doom and gloom on AI as I was six months ago, but I think it's a bit silly to think that AI isn't going to cause massive upheaval across all industries in the medium to long term.
But also, for the record, I'm less worried about AI than I am about AI in the hands of Capitalism.
Remember when tech workers dreamed of [...]
Yes, I remember. I had some of those dreams.
I was never a candidate for starting my own tech company, I was a self-taught dev living with undiagnosed autism and if anything, the plan was to work for a tech giant my whole life or until I could cash in some options and retire with some security.
I worked for Microsoft from the mid-90s to 2014 and it was all going basically to plan until one fine day 18,000 of us were called to a meeting to be told we were being laid off. I understand why they did this (there were groups in the company that did more or less the same things but with different tooling and I'd been working to align those things, because obvs we could use resources better and strangely management didn't want that) but it hurt a lot to learn that a big part of the mass-layoff logic was not so much about efficiency or doing better work, it was about juicing the stock by making the market happy about cutting labor costs, and it was about depressing the kinds of wages folks like me could bargain for. (There's nothing quite like a sudden dump of ~18k new job-seekers in a regional market to press those salary offers down by 20%)
It's 9 years on and I'm working at a smaller shop, writing open-source software and I still don't make what I was making then (and I've been watching as Amazon and Microsoft and Google keep on running this mass-layoff play every other year). I could probably make better money if I jumped around from job to job, but frankly where I'm at is a good fit, they're accommodating of my neurodivergence, and there isn't the specter of immanent buyouts or mass layoffs to juice the stock.
Looking down-thread, I see some dispute about whether folks in my position are petit bourgeois or the proletariat, and really I don't care what label you lot think is the right one- at this point I'm a middle-aged professional, I work for a living, even though in my 20s I was pretty hopeful I was tracking to be able to retire by the time I'd reach my current age. (yeah, short of winning the lottery that's not happening and when I think too hard about that it's not bitterness I feel, but chagrin)
Looking back, I recall being abruptly 'let go' from a contract when I was passing out union leaflets while working as a contractor at Microsoft, and frankly I hope they press to unionize again and the new rules about union-busting are in effect when they do it.
No matter how much you make, if you don't actually own capital, and you must work for a living to survive, you're part of the proletariat. It's just a matter of everyone else who thinks they're part of the petit bourgeois finally waking up to that fact.
As someone who started his tech career in the mid '90s, this kind of hurts to see put into words so well.
I started my tech career in 2003 and back then I thought I'd work for a startup, get some options, go public, and retire at 35.
That did not happen, and while I'm making more than most I don't have fancy vacations or a brand new Tesla.
Maybe now we'll finally unionize
Calling google workers proletariat is out of touch and borderline insulting to real working class.
3-month salary for a junior at google is what a "real" proletarian do in a full year, with addition of pension, stock options, benefits and bonuses
The line dividing working class from owning class is not their monthly salary. It's their relationship to capital. Do they work for their living, or do they own for their living?
same reason why being an athlete sucks -- even though you're making insane sums, the guys at the top are making far more than that, without putting their body on the line in any way whatsoever, indefinitely [whereas most players retire in their 30s, if they're lucky enough to have that long of a career]
Google engineers have capital, both invested and cash. Enough to start their own company if they wanted. They simply decide that living as googler is easier and more convenient
As long as their livelihood is dependent on labouring, they're working class. You should show some solidarity, rather than trying to divide the working class.
Even bourgeois class works. Even aristocrats... CEOs work.
Working is not what identifies proletariat.
I show solidarity, I have former colleagues working at google. They have all my solidarity, but they are not proletariat.
An average google engineer have more capital than most CEOs around the world.
They need to unionize, but they are not proletariat. My company is unionized, and we are not proletariat. There are unionized people owning multiple porsches. They are not proletariat. They simply find easier to live out of a good salary instead of the stress of having their own company
I didn't say they didn't work. I said that their livelihood isn't dependant on labouring.
I don't know what you gain out of gatekeeping the working class. The whole invention of the middle class has been a tool by the owning class to separate the working class.
Working at Google is not what it used to be 20 years ago. Not only would an average CEO be better off but there are plenty of other tech companies better to work at as well. Google engineers are salary workers not much different than any other
Those I know drive tesla and porsche, spend their long holidays traveling the world in expensive places, and have higher entry salaries than management in banks, with larger bonuses.
But apparently you guys know different engineers that struggle to survive... Fine with that. I might know only the lucky ones.
Otherwise we are all proletariat. Which is a news for me. I can finally complain with my "real proletarian" friends that I am as well a proletarian sharing the struggle, although I am definitely not.
Anyway, I will stop arguing. Apparently labeling google engineers as proletariat is an important topic in Lemmy, that users do with extra passion
Anyway, I will stop arguing. Apparently labeling google engineers as proletariat is an important topic in Lemmy, that users do with extra passion
You are the one who came in and insisted on specific labels. People disagree with you. Don't pretend this was our passion, it was yours.
I had spent 6 years fastidiously saving to have 20k in investments when I got hired by Google.
I was laid off in the wave 9 months later.
So no: I didn't (and don't) have enough money to just start my own company.
It's workers of the world unite not workers of the world only allow people who match your purity test. If you're not with us, you're part of the problem.
Ah yes, just what the working class desperately needs, a gatekeeper.
I am not a gate keeper. I work in an unionized company in fintech. But I also recognize that calling me "proletarian" is detrimental for battles of real proletariat. Because I have a better salary than a medical doctor with a 5th of the stress. And I don't make near google salary. I have former colleagues who went to google... They are not absolutely struggling. They need to unionize? Surely. But let's keep it real, use words properly, because there are people in the current economy who are struggling. Proletariat means that the only "capital" owned by someone is their children. It evolved to mean working class, where only capital is ability to do a work.
Google engineers have real capital invested in stock market and pension funds, a great salary and benefits, transferable skills, and their biggest asset is their knowledge. They need to unionize only to fight back to mass lay offs, and have more saying on the company direction. Other than that they are doing pretty fine.
I work in tech, not Google but I am compensated similarly. The reason you are getting my downvotes is because you're missing the point. We worked our asses off to get where we are only to say we're "not struggling" anymore and have early retirement plans in place because we were thoughtful in our career choices and personal budget. That's a lot different from someone who had a retirement plan set from birth or doesn't need to work for a living.
Ultimately as long as tech workers continue to sell their labor then they are working class.
Dog the shadeholders who let google pay you that high wage to convince people to join this profession also own the fucking overpriced housing and grocery stores that take it riiiight back.
Any way to read the article without the paywall?
Yes. But it would be wrong for you to use a site like archive.is to circumvent a paywall.
I wish I could read the entire article without an account.
Eric Flint is one of my favorite authors.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
