Look, folks. I'm an old man and pretty much out of the workforce at this point in my life. But what I see in these comments day, after day is rather pitiful. As your Uncle John, I'm going to give you a lecture:
From the article:
>I can’t really blame anyone who’s just gone along with things
Whst is this supposed to mean "blame"? Do you "blame" people for driving cars instead of riding horses? Do you "blame" software engineers for eliminating entire industries?
Folks, writing software can be fun and satisfying. Do it for the enjoyment. But suck it up, because the technology wave you rode to a well-paying job was always going to be short-lived for the majority of programmers.
Just like the engineers who built steam engines, or living room radios, or tube TV's, or Internet dial-up modems and long distance phone networks, or whatever other technology that has come and gone: just move on, because you helped to put those people out of work--and they moved on.
You're going to drive yourselves crazy with the constant re-hashing and sobbing over the obvious changes that are happening. Figure out how you go forward and start going forward.
“Just suck it up” coming from a person who doesn’t have to deal with the consequences has to be the least convincing take on the situation I’ve heard by far. So congrats on that.
To offer a perspective from someone in the field: I built my career as a craftsman. Not just my livelihood, but my family’s livelihood depended on this craft. And within a few short months, my value has plummeted. I’ve tried to adapt, but I will never be as good with the newer tools as I was with the old, just like most carriage makers didn’t become mechanics, to use your analogy. At the same time, the value of the work is just less. Weavers could work in fabric mills, but their pay would be less. Now, just like back then, I, my wife, and my two young children face a financial reforming just beyond the horizon. It will be painful for many. There is no amount of adaptation that is within grasp of all those affected.
I think the general problem with your argument is that you assume that, because there was a transition from horses to cars, many people successfully transitioned from one profession to the other. The reality is that they didn’t. Many suffered in anonymity.
Yeah, you and me both. Look at it on the long scale of history, change is a constant. Everything is impermanent. It’s not our choice to have this forced upon us, but it’s our choice as to how we adapt. Or not.
Personally, I’m choosing to be mentally flexible. I don’t want to embrace fear, fear is the mind killer.
You can probably do a whole lot of things to make money. I’ve only ever made software, so this is a real kick in the arse, but so be it. Time to pay attention and see where this story goes.
Yeah but horses to cars is insignificant compared to an AI that is going to swallow us all. We don't even have time to make new career choices because AI will catch up faster than we can think.
Agreed . I told my partner about a year ago "I have to figure out how to love this AI thing because it's a part of life now, even if I stop working with computers". And admitting that maybe I'm not being as open as I should be about it was the first step.
I see it like cloud computing. We were told infrastructure engineers wouldn't be necessary and anyone could build at scale now and blah blah. Instead we got Terraform and solid practices for infrastructure as code and moved beyond having to email some dude to get a new VPS or dedicated server spun up and making trips to the colo. It just changed the possibilities of what we could build.
I've been treating AI the same way and just leveled up what I build now and my ambition. It has helped a great deal with being okay with AI. All those fun insane projects in my head that I never figured would happen because "it would take a full team months to code that" are realistically possible. Big things that used to be entire companies are now possible. You hate Google search now? Guess what, you can make your own!
I don't treat my side projects purely as an "end goal" anymore but as a learning experience now. I slow down and actually read the code. These are my own projects. Then I take these things I learn to work and apply them. That's how it's always been when new tech comes along. I also hated kubernetes when it first came, but have now settled into "it has it's place". I learned about myself a bit and that I should be a little more open to change if for no other reason than peace of mind.
Just cause something has already happened many times to other people doesn't mean it's not special or interesting when it happens to you. It's been extraordinary seeing this unfold before me.
And I think it's worth noting that the novel thing about what's happening now is that, unlike before, when physical labor was devalued and commodified, we are now seeing intellectual labor, even at its highest levels, suffering the same fate.
In my domain, we call it "selling out". It's not blameless, but for people who function in modern society we all likely have done similar things. So it's hard to blame them.
>the technology wave you rode to a well-paying job was always going to be short-lived for the majority of programmers.
Sounds easy to say when your context is "I'm an old man and pretty much out of the workforce at this point in my life.". If I could just turn programming into a hobby today and retool myself into, say, an accountant in a year I would not be anywhere near as bitter.
But no. Instead it's more like you're falling through the cracks of society and will be unable to ever reach your status. some circles are calling this the "permanent underclass". People don't tend to react well to doing what they were told to do and then having rewards yanked from them in real time.
Can you chill Uncle John? It’s ok to have feelings, you know. And this post was literally about how the author is figuring out how to go forward, in their own way.
Hard to do when adapting/innovating means essentially joining the Borg. People have a million analogies to what is happening with AI right now but they often fail to see how unprecedented it is. Is history really just repeating? Are we in a cycle? Or is this just a paperclip optimizer?
I came here to write something similar but not as forceful. Your comment is far better than might ever have the guts or wherewithal to express. I build things with the tools I have. I also repair the ancient wood windows at my house with an assortment of POWER tools, like a router and table saw.
AI is my coding power tool. I'm building stuff for humans, just faster now. It's amazing.
From the article:
>I can’t really blame anyone who’s just gone along with things
Whst is this supposed to mean "blame"? Do you "blame" people for driving cars instead of riding horses? Do you "blame" software engineers for eliminating entire industries?
Folks, writing software can be fun and satisfying. Do it for the enjoyment. But suck it up, because the technology wave you rode to a well-paying job was always going to be short-lived for the majority of programmers.
Just like the engineers who built steam engines, or living room radios, or tube TV's, or Internet dial-up modems and long distance phone networks, or whatever other technology that has come and gone: just move on, because you helped to put those people out of work--and they moved on.
You're going to drive yourselves crazy with the constant re-hashing and sobbing over the obvious changes that are happening. Figure out how you go forward and start going forward.