AI in reality : programmer

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 205 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (17 children)

Lol. Even among those less stupid, most didn't hire junior developers for the last three years, to hedge their bets.

Well, it's three years later, AI didn't solve shit, and we are facing an entire missing cohort of senior developers.

We've seen this before - back when web frameworks "made all of us obsolete" back in 2003.-

Here's what comes next:

Everyone who needs a senior developer gets to start bidding up the prices of the missing senior developers. Since there simply aren't enough to go around, the "find out" phase will be punctuated.

Losing bidders get to pay 4x rates for 1/3 the output from consulting companies.

Cheers!

Source: I was made obsolete by web frameworks so hard that I entered a delusion where working with web frameworks just let us produce bigger buggier websites even faster - and where the demand for web developers skyrocketed and I made some seriously respectable money while helping train up junior developers to help address the severe shortage.

[–] rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 66 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Wait, people really thought web frameworks would replace Devs? Which frameworks? 😂

[–] Aqarius@lemmy.world 99 points 3 days ago (1 children)

People thought COBOL would let managers write code.

[–] Gutek8134@lemmy.world 37 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What.

[–] Aqarius@lemmy.world 52 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's by design very verbose and "English"-like, like instead of x=y*z it would go "MULTIPLY y BY z GIVING x", the idea was that it would read almost like natural language, so that non-tech staff could understand it.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 49 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Except that it's not the syntax that makes programming hard, it's the thought process, right?

[–] frezik@midwest.social 30 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yes. COBOL can be excused because it was the first time anyone was going down that path. Everything that comes later, less so.

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[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 3 days ago (3 children)

i mean syntax is part of it, but it can only help you so much. like no matter how you talk about mathematics, you have to somehow understand what multiplication is, but it certainly does help to write "5x3" rather than "5+5+5"

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[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 59 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's very common. Every few years there is some no-code platform claiming no developers are needed anymore in any sector, not just web dev. Invariably these only work if you stay on the narrow path and of course the customer asks something outside of the easy path after the first demo so a lot of work by devs are needed to make of happen.

AI is just one more like that, but with hype on steroids.

[–] syklemil@discuss.tchncs.de 31 points 3 days ago (7 children)

And very old. Part of the sales pitch for the COmmon Business-Protected Language was that anyone could learn to code in almost plain English.

Also, the stuff they wind up making is the kind of stuff that people with no coding experience make. Cooking up an ugly website with terrible performance and security isn't much harder than making an ugly presentation with lots of WordArt. But it never was, either.

Between COBOL and LLM-enhanced "low code" we had other stuff, like that infamous product from MS that produced terrible HTML. At this point I can't even recall what it was called. The SharePoint editor maybe?

[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 27 points 3 days ago

Even SQL was originally called SEQUEL, Structured English QUEry Language. They got sued for the name and changed it to SQL. It was also pitched to retrieve data with plain language.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

FrontPage?

[–] Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 days ago

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[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 22 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Which frameworks? 😂

Ruby on Rails was probably the peak of the hype wave. It had a tutorial that any manager could follow to build a simple data driven website in minutes.

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[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 18 points 3 days ago

Well, forget for a moment everything you know about webpages and now you want a form where the user can create an account. The sales person tells you that the user has entered the data for us, so it just needs to be sent with a request to the backend, which always looks the same. And then it just needs to be put into a INSERT INTO, which also always looks the same.
All of that stuff can clearly be auto-generated by the framework. And 70% of the ~~boilerplate~~ code does exactly that, so that obviously means 70% of the workload of your devs disappears, which means you can get rid of 70% of your developers.

It just makes it really easy to scam people, when they don't know the technical side...

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[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 161 points 3 days ago (8 children)

Can you imagine the absolute misery of working for someone like this.

A person who thinks developers are all useless, and has total contempt for any skills that aren't "business" stuff.

A person who thinks tech is easy and you can "just" do this and "just" do that and everything will be done, always telling you "this is so easy I could do it myself" while any contribution they make only makes things worse, and if there's any kind of hold-up it's because you're either "lazy" or "incompetent"

No thanks.

[–] underisk@lemmy.ml 52 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Haha yeah… imagine… right.

[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 27 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I wish the best for you, and hope you find yourself a better boss soon.

[–] underisk@lemmy.ml 28 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks, but the reason I don’t have to imagine is because that job is a memory.

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[–] JordanZ@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Dev is a large financial drain and a ton of companies accounting departments(or whoever) don’t see the value. Ok the IT department is responsible for the website? The website is ‘done’ though so why are we still paying all these IT/Dev people? Cue massive IT layoffs…wall street/investors are super happy.

No new features/bug fixes/security updates. Customers are unhappy(who cares?, they’re still spending money!). Oh…massive data leak from some unpatched security vulnerability. All the sudden IT budget blows up…

The damage to reputation and future business deals are hindered. The amount of promising you’ve identified the problem and mitigated that from happening again etc. The requirements of other companies that you follow xyz audits to do business with them etc(which can be a good thing, it’s just very costly to a business).

Then a handful of years later they forget it all and repeat…

I work in IT/Dev…oof.

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[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I never understood it, but business owners seem to have utter contempt for the people who actually make their money. I'm not talking about support staff, I mean the people that if they stay home, dollars aren't getting printed for everyone else. In private EMS, the billing staff would constantly get parties and catering and gift cards and shit, while the crews actually running the calls and writing the billable reports got third-hand furniture, moldy stations, ambulances held together with a fucking wish, and constant bellyaching about how paying the crews minimum wage was costing the company too much money. I'm starting to notice the same pattern pop up between the dev team and the product team as my software company scales.

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[–] sunbeam60@lemmy.one 12 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The best part is when some dufus goes “I’ve got a great idea and the grit to see it through. I just need to hire a tech person to do it for me”.

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[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 176 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I kinda wish it included the dates on these. Not having them makes me a bit dubious

[–] TheSlad@sh.itjust.works 24 points 3 days ago

The screenshotted tweet was from dec 20th. The linkedin post from dec 9th. You can see them in the link to his linkedin post in another comment.

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[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 122 points 3 days ago (5 children)

well this happens because people have zero understanding of what programming is. they think that programmers have memorised some "dictionaries" that translate human specifications to machine code with complete disregard for problem solving and design part of things.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 32 points 3 days ago (2 children)

when actually everyone knows engineering is all about being able to negotiate precisely which snacks and soft drinks go in the office break room

[–] blackluster117@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 days ago

It's a delicate balance!

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[–] CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org 27 points 3 days ago (1 children)

t've always wondered, why lots of people think that if something you do is technical, then it's inherently not creative? You sure have a bit lesser degree of self-expression, but self-expression is mere an aspect of creativity

[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Its easy for a passerby to appreciate the work, skill, and creativity that goes into a painting or song. Its hard for the average person to infer those things looking at an electrical box or a plumbing network. An electrician knows when they're looking at good up to code wiring and a plumber can tell if the plumbing can be put together right. Those are things the average person has no concept of and doesn't want to think about all unless they have to. One provides instant artistic appeal while having no practical value, the other provides practical value but its systems are too complicated for the average person to appreciate in totality.

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[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 3 days ago

Mathematicians: "First time?"

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[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 108 points 3 days ago (4 children)

This man doesn't even know the difference between AGI and a text generation program, so it doesn't surprise me he couldn't tell the difference between that program and real, living human beings.

He also seems to have deleted his LinkedIn account.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 45 points 3 days ago

Dude's clearly a dunce. There was never any chance he was gonna succeed.

[–] lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

AGI is currently just a buzzword anyway...

Microsoft defines AGI in contracts in dollars of earnings...

If you'd travel in time 5 years back and show the currently best GPT to someone, he/she would probably accept it as AGI.

I've seen multiple experts in German television explaining that LLMs will reach the AGI state within a few years...

(That does not mean that the CEO guy isn't a fool. Let's wait for the first larger problem that requires not writing new code, but rather dealing with a bug, something not documented, or similar...)

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 41 points 3 days ago (8 children)

LLMs can't become AGIs. They have no ability to actually reason. What they can do is use predigested reasoning to fake it. It's particularly obvious with certain classes of proble., when they fall down. I think the fact it fakes so well tells us more about human intelligence than AI.

That being said, LLMs will likely be a critical part of a future AGI. Right now, they are a lobotomised speech centre. Different groups are already starting to tie them to other forms of AI. If we can crack building a reasoning engine, then a full AGI is possible. An LLM might even form its internal communication method, akin to our internal monologue.

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[–] yarr@feddit.nl 44 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Plans like this work great for the first couple of weeks. Turns out software engineering isn't this simple fucking thing. Making anything beyond a toy takes actual work. There are lots of people learning this first hand right now. There is some kind of belief that ChatGPT version 0.1+ (whatever ships in 2 weeks) will be able to take over the job of software development entirely. Well, guess what? Doing anything relatively complex in software takes actual intelligence. Once there is an AI that can just code by itself, it will also be smart enough to be a doctor, civil engineer, consultant, etc.

A lot of fucking companies are going to learn this first hand. They are either firing their staff thinking the AI wave is already here, and in reality, it may never come.

The near future of AI is skilled software engineers using AI to augment their productivity. By the time you can take the human out of the loop, AI will be so powerful it will slay any white collar job, but this won't be for years and years and years and by then it won't just be software that is in trouble as a career; it will be many, many industries.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Plus there's the problem of a limited context window. Real software projects are spread across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of files. Then they are deployed, sometimes compiled, run on a variety of devices and clients, and need to meet a couple dozen criteria to be acceptable, even more to be great. The AI can't track all of that and your request too, its context window is far too small. It can barely track a single file and your request, plus request changes. Tracking all of this from day-to-day, over months and years is just one part of an engineer's job, and it's going to be a long time before an AI can do that one small part of the job. Ask an AI why some part of the project was changed 12 months ago. Just try it. It'll evaluate the code, try to reason, and make something up. Ask a person and they'll remember the exact reason why, both in the context of the requested change and the coding project limitations.

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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 86 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I found the screenshot order confusing at first, and it's not OPs fault since the original article got the screenshots backwards too

From the article:

Synopsis Wes Winder, a Canadian software developer, is facing backlash after his controversial decision to replace his development team with Al backfired. Once a trending topic on Reddit and a source of widespread ridicule, Winder is now in an awkward position as he turns to Linkedln in search of web developers to hire.

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[–] sudoer777@lemmy.ml 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The tweet came several days after the LinkedIn post, people need to not just believe everything they see on the internet

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

"Does anyone want to come clean up my mess? As a gig fee of course though, I don't need employees. I keep all the money. It's mine! All mine!"

[–] someacnt@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

My mother is currently like, AI will eliminate all junior jobs and everyone will be on the managerial position. It's honestly exhausting. Damn, when will the hype end???

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

My mother is currently like, AI will eliminate all junior jobs

There's a little truth to it.

The junior jobs did dry up, due to speculation by ignorant leaders, about three years ago.

But now everyone who didn't hire then has progressed through awkwardness then worry toward outright panic, as AI can't deliver everything they were promised. AI still might deliver what they need someday, but it now even the CEO can see that it clearly won't be in time to save the CEO's next bonus.

In my past experience, three years is about as long as most companies can get away with not hiring developer talent - before unfixed problems turn into crisis.

Sure enough, we're starting to see the leading edge of the panic hiring, now.

Things could still calm back down - due to more speculation, or another coordinated effort by CEOs to suppress developer salaries. I'm not a time traveler.

But the junior jobs will come roaring back with a vengeance one way or another.

My money is on this year.

That's actually literal, in my case.

I successfully made a case to spent some extra on developer bonuses this year to hopefully proactively avoid having to do any backfills during 2025 - when I, personally, expect developer hires to be particularly expensive (relative to inflation).

I've also spent the last three years building up some internal non-developer staff toward readiness to be an emergency backfill, in case I need a developer backfill in 2025, and cannot afford any at prevailing market rates.

Of course, I've lived through enough "developers are ludicrously expensive" years, that I just always prepare for them. If it's not 2025, it'll be 2026 or whenever, and my team will survive because I kept our options open. Probably will help that I also didn't piss off the talent by trying to replace them with bad automation, lol.

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[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 37 points 3 days ago (3 children)

https://m.economictimes.com/magazines/panache/instant-karma-employer-who-replaced-his-tech-team-with-ai-asks-for-new-developers-on-linkedin-heres-what-happened-next/articleshow/116625826.cms

[–] Tetsuo@jlai.lu 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I just got to say this website is a nightmare. At least 4 popups overlays just opening the article. The remove ads button just leaves the article and offer you to pay to remove ads. There is also delayed popups appearing while you read the article...

Are they speedrunning obsolence by making sure nobody read their articles online?

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[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

AI is just one of the many technologies that only exists to pollute the earth and maintain the illusion of scarcity within the labour pool. the added benefit of a bunch of new faces to circulate the same hoarded wealth helps too.

[–] ebc@lemmy.ca 16 points 3 days ago

In the near future: Journalists use AI to turn 1 or 2 sentences into a full article. Meanwhile, readers use AI to summarize long articles into 1 or 2 sentences.

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 11 points 3 days ago

This is great, but where's the post from one month later where this fool is begging for work after being fired?

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