BlueMonday1984

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 3d ago

Baldur Bjarnason gives his thoughts on the software job market, predicting a collapse regardless of how AI shakes out:

If you model the impact of working LLM coding tools (big increase in productivity, little downside) where the bottlenecks are largely outside of coding, increases in coding automation mostly just reduce the need for labour. I.e. 10x increase means you need 10x fewer coders, collapsing the job market
If you model the impact of working LLM coding tools with no bottlenecks, then the increase in productivity massively increases the supply of undifferentiated software and the prices you can charge for any software drops through the floor, collapsing the job market
If the models increase output but are flawed, as in they produce too many defects or have major quality issues, Akerlof's market for lemons kicks in, bad products drive out good, value of software in the market heads south, collapsing the job market
If the model impact is largely fictitious, meaning this is all a scam and the perceived benefit is just a clusterfuck of cognitive hazards, then the financial bubble pop will be devastating, tech as an industry will largely be destroyed, and trust in software will be zero, collapsing the job market
I can only think of a few major offsetting forces:
If the EU invests in replacing US software, bolstering the EU job market.
China might have substantial unfulfilled domestic demand for software, propping up their job market
Companies might find that declining software quality harms their bottom-line, leading to a Y2K-style investment in fixing their software stacks
But those don't seem likely to do more than partially offset the decline. Kind of hoping I'm missing something

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 3d ago

The phrase "ambient AI listening in our hospital" makes me hear the "Dies Irae" in my head.

I'm personally hearing "Morceaux" myself.

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BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 3d ago

That slopped-out "diagram" plagiarised Vincent Driessen’s “A successful Git branching model”, BTW.

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 4d ago

Claudio Nastruzzi of The Reg chimes in on the inherent shittiness of AI writing, coining the term "semantic ablation" to describe its capacity to destroy whatever unique voice a text has.

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BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 4d ago

Look at the fresh garbage LinkedIn served to me today: https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/managing-ai-is-the-next-gen-skill-7655601/

(Why am I still on that godforsaken hellsite)

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 4d ago

I wish we could finally agree that tech bros (and MBAs!) are greedy, full of shit and ruining the planet. And then remove both groups from any place of influence.

Prohibiting the teaching of MBAs and/or massively funding the humanities would be a good start. Hell, you could fund the humanities with the cash that currently goes toward MBAs and kill two birds with one stone.

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BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 5d ago

New post from Iris Meredith (titled "Carbon Dysphoria"), comparing the large-scale dysfunction of the tech industry to gender dysphoria - "definitely one of my weirder ones", by her own admission

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 5d ago

Former Reddit CEO

wants humanity to "perish with dignity"

The fuck does a former Reddit CEO know about dignity

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BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 6d ago

Stumbled across a stray blogpost that piqued my interest: A programmer's loss of identity

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BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 6d ago

Rat-adjacent coder Scott Shambaugh has continued blogging on the PR disaster turned AI-generated pissy blog post.

TL;DR: Ars Technica AI-generated an article with fabricated quotes (which got taken down after backlash), and Scott has reported a quarter of the comments he read taking the clanker's side in the entire debacle.

Personally, I'm willing to take Scott at his word on that last part - between being a programmer and being a rat/rat-adjacent, chances are his circles are (were?) highly vulnerable to being hit by the LLM rot.

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 1w ago

So AI is a parasite that takes from Wikipedia, contributes nothing in return, and in fact actively chokes it out? And you think the solution is for Wikipedia to just surrender and implement AI features?

Given how thoroughly tech bought into the AI hype, that is probably the exact "solution" he's thinking of.

(Exactly why tech fell for the slop machines so hard, I'll probably never know.)

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 1w ago

some nimrod suggested skilled machinists be outfitted with pressure sensing gloves and cameras and patiently explain eahc machining step so the LLMs could take their jobs

I expected a willingness from HN users to backstab the working class, but I didn't expect something this blatantly half-baked.

10x developers, 0.1x proletariat.

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 1w ago

"As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts"

Medical malpractice as a service, coming to a GP near you

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BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 2w ago

The whole thing's worth reading, but this snippet in particular deserves attention:

Tech companies have done everything they can to maximise the potential harms of generative models because in doing so they think they’re maximising their own personal benefit.

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 2w ago

Starting this Stubsack off by linking to Pavel Samsonov's "You can't "AI-proof your career" with a project mindset", a follow-on to Iris Meredith's "Becoming an AI-proof software engineer" which goes further into how best to safeguard one's software career from the slop-bots.

BlueMonday1984 @awful.systems 2w ago

The first issue filed is called “Hello world does not compile” so you can tell it’s off to a good start.

The comments are a hoot, at least.