A few people have been asking me what I think about AI encroaching on programmers’ jobs, and I’ve been replying with this https://www.commitstrip.com/2016/08/25/a-very-comprehensive-and-precise-spec/
A very comprehensive and precise spec

@ZevEisenberg as in other fields being encroached on, it’s not mostly about replacing people or having them do less work, or freeing them to do “higher level work.” It’s about paying them less for the same work because they’re “just cleaning up the output.” Watch what’s happening in translation services.

Where replacement will come is at the most junior levels, making it difficult to train the next generation of folks to do that “clean up.”

@ZevEisenberg My biggest concerns are a bit more technical, though. Like other extractive industries, LLMs are about mining shared resources without giving anything back. It relies on a huge, continual input of human-generated content while undermining the systems that make creating that content possible. Soon it will be forced to start training on its own output, because it generates so much it crowds out everything else. That is a terrible feedback loop. See the onslaught on Stack Overflow.
@cocoaphony I don’t usually just reply to questions glibly with a comic strip; it just so happens that my two favorite comic strips ever are in this area 😅 https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2460#comic (Also, damn, it’s annoying how cohesive and plausible your reply is. I do not possess the correct emoji for my emotions, so: ❤️)
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Dance Dance Dance

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Dance Dance Dance