I think this from @sleepyfox is apt, and its hedge-your-bets true-either-way apt:
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I think this from @sleepyfox is apt, and it’s hedge-your-bets true-either-way apt:
If by some miracle LLMs do eventually manage to generate usable software better than humans, there will be vastly increased demand for all the parts of programming that aren’t syntax and basic code patterns (ie all the hard parts).
If (as I expect) LLMs generate mountains of half-baked garbage code, the corps that survive will be paying humans to clean up the mess for a generation.
https://hachyderm.io/@sleepyfox/112700667658775141 -
As replies to the OP point out, the question isn’t really whether the software industry grows (it will, if civilization continues) or whether it changes (it will, guaranteed, as it always has).
The question is who gets harmed along the way. When companies punch themselves in the face, it’s not the people in power who bleed.
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If my remark above about “all the hard parts” doesn’t immediately click for you — or if it does and you just want to cheer on somebody telling it like it is — I recommend this instant classic essay from @jenniferplusplus:
Losing the imitation game
AI cannot develop software for you, but that's not going to stop people from trying to make it happen anyway. And that is going to turn all of the easy software development problems into hard problems.
Jennifer++ (jenniferplusplus.com)
See also this thread from my pinned posts:
Paul Cantrell (@[email protected])
Any experienced programmer worth their salt will tell you that •producing• code — learning syntax, finding examples, combining them, adding behaviors, adding complexity — is the •easy• part of programming. The hard part: “How can it break? How will it surprise us? How will it change? Does it •really• accomplish our goal? What •is• our goal? Are we all even imagining the same goal? Do we understand each other? Will the next person to work on this understand it? Should we even build this?”
Hachyderm.io (hachyderm.io)
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To be entirely fair "clean up the mess from the last group" is already a big part of my job in software development, no language models required.
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@itty53 @sleepyfox
Yeah, I think it’s pretty easy for those of us who’ve been around the block once or twice to imagine how this plays out… -
@inthehands I keep thinking about post-apocalypse fiction, where the survivors have lost the knowledge to make or maintain the technology left behind. It's not happening in the order I thought it would.
Ubi sunt, I guess
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@inthehands @itty53 So, completely unknown and unknowable for all the execs and C-suite then?