I think it's interesting how software engineers are (among?) the most eager working class group to replace themselves with LLMs.
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I think it's interesting how software engineers are (among?) the most eager working class group to replace themselves with LLMs.
It's interesting because LLMs do a worse job than us, we lose ability/skill to do our job the more we use it, lose our jobs, produce worse software, are less satisfied with our work, etc.
Yet so many of my peers seem to be super excited about and advocate for it, while other working class groups at least detest LLMs if not even consider organising themselves to protect their trade/jobs from LLMs.
Are we becoming the cops (read as: class traitors) of this techno-fascist dystopia?
You're hanging out with a different bunch of software engineers than I am.
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I think it's interesting how software engineers are (among?) the most eager working class group to replace themselves with LLMs.
It's interesting because LLMs do a worse job than us, we lose ability/skill to do our job the more we use it, lose our jobs, produce worse software, are less satisfied with our work, etc.
Yet so many of my peers seem to be super excited about and advocate for it, while other working class groups at least detest LLMs if not even consider organising themselves to protect their trade/jobs from LLMs.
Are we becoming the cops (read as: class traitors) of this techno-fascist dystopia?
@vie I mean, some of "us" have been for a long time - the Palantir employees among us, for example - and I think it's mostly people who previously had those tendencies but lacked the access or funds to capitalize on them that are showing their true colors now.
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You're hanging out with a different bunch of software engineers than I am.
I have to admit, some sw engineers are horrified by the applications that business people want to use generative AI for, and some are keen.
But even the podcasters that talk about AI are saying it is not ready for prime time. Then they narrate or play a rah-rah ad. It's quite disorienting. But they need the money I guess.
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@vie I mean, some of "us" have been for a long time - the Palantir employees among us, for example - and I think it's mostly people who previously had those tendencies but lacked the access or funds to capitalize on them that are showing their true colors now.
@noracodes @vie software also sits at a very unusual place in regard to attitudes to labor and automation.
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@noracodes @vie software also sits at a very unusual place in regard to attitudes to labor and automation.
@noracodes @vie like, personally, if there were an actual technology which could fully replace everything we do as a programmer, that would be amazing. it would free us to write code purely for artistic expression rather than as a job.
... except, it wouldn't, because in this society, workers don't get the benefits of automation; management does. we'd have to do some other job that felt less meaningful.
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@noracodes @vie like, personally, if there were an actual technology which could fully replace everything we do as a programmer, that would be amazing. it would free us to write code purely for artistic expression rather than as a job.
... except, it wouldn't, because in this society, workers don't get the benefits of automation; management does. we'd have to do some other job that felt less meaningful.
@noracodes @vie of course, these models are fundamentally not capable of doing that, so they aren't such a technology. rather, they are taking advantage of that desire by masquerading as a technology that actually does things.
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I think it's interesting how software engineers are (among?) the most eager working class group to replace themselves with LLMs.
It's interesting because LLMs do a worse job than us, we lose ability/skill to do our job the more we use it, lose our jobs, produce worse software, are less satisfied with our work, etc.
Yet so many of my peers seem to be super excited about and advocate for it, while other working class groups at least detest LLMs if not even consider organising themselves to protect their trade/jobs from LLMs.
Are we becoming the cops (read as: class traitors) of this techno-fascist dystopia?
@vie i wonder why that's the case, but yeah i've observed that too. my gut feeling is that code is extremely predictable, so LLMs are better at that than they are at other things, making them more enticing? and then the chatbot psychosis sets in.
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@noracodes @vie of course, these models are fundamentally not capable of doing that, so they aren't such a technology. rather, they are taking advantage of that desire by masquerading as a technology that actually does things.
@noracodes @vie other industries have carried the banner of "the future" before computers did; in each of those, hostile practices from management eventually stamped out most of that idealism.
programmers have a tendency to not recognize themselves as workers, and to therefore cheer for their own oppression, so the idealism has lasted longer than usual.
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@noracodes @vie software also sits at a very unusual place in regard to attitudes to labor and automation.
@ireneista @noracodes @vie Also somewhat unusual amongst disciplines in that it only came to exist (more or less, please permit some handwaving here) in the aftermath of Reagan's attacks on labor unions.
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@noracodes @vie software also sits at a very unusual place in regard to attitudes to labor and automation.
@ireneista @noracodes That is a very good observation. There's this running thing we hear in our circles around automating ourselves out of a job.
I didn't really think about this before, but that's interesting and somewhat unique, which makes this job even weirder under capitalism.
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@ireneista @noracodes @vie Also somewhat unusual amongst disciplines in that it only came to exist (more or less, please permit some handwaving here) in the aftermath of Reagan's attacks on labor unions.
@xgranade @ireneista @noracodes Yeah, and in a place that's very close to hyper-capitalist mindsets, especially US and/or VC-funded places
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I think it's interesting how software engineers are (among?) the most eager working class group to replace themselves with LLMs.
It's interesting because LLMs do a worse job than us, we lose ability/skill to do our job the more we use it, lose our jobs, produce worse software, are less satisfied with our work, etc.
Yet so many of my peers seem to be super excited about and advocate for it, while other working class groups at least detest LLMs if not even consider organising themselves to protect their trade/jobs from LLMs.
Are we becoming the cops (read as: class traitors) of this techno-fascist dystopia?
I've had a theory for a few years that most software engineers don't actually like software engineering. Had there not been money in it they would have followed a different career path instead of getting a CS degree from a 4-year college (or boot camps).
LLMs align with this theory. The people who are excited that something else is doing their job for them are the same people who picked the job for the salary, not the joy.
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@vie i wonder why that's the case, but yeah i've observed that too. my gut feeling is that code is extremely predictable, so LLMs are better at that than they are at other things, making them more enticing? and then the chatbot psychosis sets in.
@nicuveo Yeah, I think the fact that they tend to produce verbose and large quantities of code hinders our ability to judge it as harsh as it deserves. And in some ways, it's impressive. Or it would be, if it wasn't used to throw code to prod
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I think it's interesting how software engineers are (among?) the most eager working class group to replace themselves with LLMs.
It's interesting because LLMs do a worse job than us, we lose ability/skill to do our job the more we use it, lose our jobs, produce worse software, are less satisfied with our work, etc.
Yet so many of my peers seem to be super excited about and advocate for it, while other working class groups at least detest LLMs if not even consider organising themselves to protect their trade/jobs from LLMs.
Are we becoming the cops (read as: class traitors) of this techno-fascist dystopia?
@vie Computer Maoism. It's endemic in Silicon Valley.
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