This notion that early-career coders can be replaced by AI is wrong. Nobody is thinking about maintaining software or the architectural disaster to come when inscrutable code that mostly works is all over the codebase. And it's real..."early-career coders have been hit especially hard because much of what they do can now be done by AI."
I recommend hiring junior humans over AI. Still. Just tool them up.
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/tech-jobs-hiring-artifical-intelligence-35cd66b0
Software is a craft. I always start new people pair programming with me, precisely for the reasons you enumerate.
Did you know an AI can be tuned to teach?
I think humans may be the better long term investment because they’ll prove to be more adaptable. Plus most access to AI today relies on tech that only a handful of companies control. Even if the productivity and accuracy claims are true, you’d be adding a dependency whose future cost and reliability you can’t control.
But my read here is more cynical. I suspect a lot of handwringing here is to use AI fear to dicipline labor into accepting lower pay and benefits.
@MidniteMikeWrites @cigitalgem
This sort of rhetoric drives me crazy. Humans are really good at dealing with exceptions, but when it comes to rules - it's pathetic.
The most damning thing I ever heard said of a programmer: "He's fine with PUSH, but when it comes to POP, it's gears and springs everywhere."
It's a tool. To my ears, this is as crazy as saying we should abandon bulldozers and go back to picks and shovels. Tell me why not.
@tuban_muzuru @MidniteMikeWrites you are entitled to your anti-luddite position. But the onus is on you to tell us why you think it should replace humans, pal. Not vice versa.
@cigitalgem @MidniteMikeWrites
Consider the DJI drone, for a moment. What a marvel of technology, I have two and my wife has one.
The drone has changed warfare forever, I think you'll agree. As the drone gains autonomy - will there come a day when people will not kill each other with every advance?
First a toy then a tool then a weapon, Dr. McGraw.
The philosophers need give us new vocabulary. The problem isn't the AI, no matter how much agency or autonomy you give it.
It's the people.
@MidniteMikeWrites @tuban_muzuru I don't. They actually think their stuff works better than it actually does. And almost all of them have no real idea how it works. Even a majority of the technical people.
I am not saying this lightly or without deep knowledge of what I am talking about.
In the case of Rust, I'm pretty specific in my interactions. Problem on my side, consider an entire Project - each time the LLM reappears, I have to re-acquaint him with project structure, the objectives - oh it catches on quick but unless its scope has been correctly set up - it's going to make "silly/obvious" mistakes.
As would the human.
Shrug. When it comes to a cut and dried subject, the AI might be better.
@tuban_muzuru I suppose third grade maybe
Look, I am impressed with what AI can do. It bullshits better than the president, for example. Ultimately the current generation of stuff is going to replace marketing people and middle management bureaucrats.
It is not going to replace coders.
Advanced AI will do well in closed systems with clear state measurement systems (even exponential ones like protein folding). Programming is not a closed system, nor is "code quality" understood today.
Gary McGraw
tuban_muzuru
MidniteMikeWrites
Das