Chris Hartjes

Programmers will be the last to embrace “tech is actually political” because our salaries and perks allowed us to not really be impacted by politics unless we (or a loved one) belong to a minority group being oppressed by their governments.

Now it’s coming for programmers via LLM’s and their boosters.

Don’t say nobody ever warned you of the likely outcomes of pretending tech is not political.

Jun 11 at 6:45pmWeb
Show threadWulfy—Speaker to the machines4d ago

@grmpyprogrammer

I used to be a trade union organiser.
IT folk rarely joined because they were special snowflakes and could always get a job.

Also, if it takes soul-less machines for the workers to develop class consciousness
I'll take it.

#Tradeunion

Show threadAlerta! Alerta!4d ago
@grmpyprogrammer Wait until you tell them that X is no longer considered adequate. That'll get them suddenly very political....
Show threadRyeNCode 🇨🇦4d ago

@heiglandreas @grmpyprogrammer
The aforementioned 'X' is currently: Able to do software development.
I can get work today if I agree to:
a) abandon my ethics (personal and professional)
b) Supervise & train the LLMs to do what I would have been doing.

I see it as disingenuous to advertise a job as a Software Developer/Engineer/Programmer when it actually involves none of that activity and you're actively punished for doing it, and pressed to NOT do it.
My expertise and experience in the field no longer matters to most potential employers. Only if I can prompt the new LLMs to hopefully roll-to-hit more often than not, and to be the one responsible when it does not.

They don't need developers anymore, they need a human to take the fall.
They sure don't want anyone to take the praise.

Show threadɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ4d ago
@grmpyprogrammer I believe that you are absolutely right, but I also think that there is a very important reason why it was that way, and that reason is that you can't really do the kind of technical work that programmers do while also thinking politically at the same time. This is why we always built organizations to shield technicians, researchers, artists, craftsmen, etc. from politics – to let them do the kind of work that requires curiosity, and hope, and naivete.
Show threadtripleman, a 🇨🇦 in 🇩🇪1d ago
@deshipu Artists? If you’re shielding yourself from politics then you ain’t doing art, you’re doing decoration.
Show threadɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ1d ago
@tripleman On the other hand, if you are not shielded from politics you are not doing art, you are doing propaganda.
Show threadtripleman, a 🇨🇦 in 🇩🇪1d ago
@deshipu bullshit.
Show threadɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ1d ago
@tripleman Imagine you are a painter in the Soviet Russia. If you have no shielding from politics – no fame that would make you harder to attack, no friends that could protect you, no sponsors that could shelter you – then you have to paint approved soc-realism pieces, "decoration" as you say, because as soon as you try anything even remotely critical of your society, you are going to a gulag, and your work gets censored.
Show threadtripleman, a 🇨🇦 in 🇩🇪1d ago
@deshipu Stalin has been dead for a long, long time and Pussy Riot is still around.
Show threadɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ1d ago
@tripleman because they are shielded
Show threadtripleman, a 🇨🇦 in 🇩🇪1d ago
@deshipu sure thing guy.
Show threadɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ1d ago
@tripleman I admire your debate skills, they are really something else.
Show threadtripleman, a 🇨🇦 in 🇩🇪23h ago
@deshipu yawn
Show threadɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ19h ago
@tripleman exquisite, truly exquisite
Show threadAdam Collins4d ago
@grmpyprogrammer I'll add that tech people tend to assume, both individually and culturally, that 1) there is a meritocracy, 2) that meritocracy is expressed through intellectually clever ideas, 3) since tech can solve some things, all things are eventually solvable from tech, and finally 4) since tech people tend to self-label as smart and hard working, they view only benefits from competing against one another in the pursuit of the first three assumptions
Show threadslash4d ago
@grmpyprogrammer Remember Oppenheimer? "I am become death. Destroyer of worlds." Programmers should be feeling that same thing over LLMs and all the rest.