> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours.
In contrast to the current top comment [1], I don't think this is a wise assessment. I'm already seeing companies in my network stall hiring, and in fact start firing. I think if you're not trying to take advantage of this technology today then there may not be a place for you tomorrow.
I find it hard to empathise with people who can't get value out of AI. It feels like they must be in a completely different bubble to me. I trust their experience, but in my own experience, it has made things possible in a matter of hours that I would never have even bothered to try.
Besides the individual contributor angle, where AI can make you code at Nx the rate of before (where N is say... between 0.5 and 10), I think the ownership class are really starting to see it differently from ICs. I initially thought: "wow, this tool makes me twice as productive, that's great". But that extra value doesn't accrue to individuals, it accrues to business owners. And the business owners I'm observing are thinking: "wow, this tool is a new paradigm making many people twice as productive. How far can we push this?"
The business owners I know who have been successful historically are seeing a 2x improvement and are completely unsatisfied. It's shattered their perspective on what is possible, and they're rebuilding their understanding of business from first principles with the new information. I think this is what the people who emerge as winners tomorrow are doing today. The game has changed.
Speaking as an IC who is both more productive than last year, but simultaneously more worried.
> I find it hard to empathise with people who can't get value out of AI. It feels like they must be in a completely different bubble to me.
I think it depends on why you do programming. I like programming for its own sake. I enjoy understanding a complex system, figuring out how to make change to it, how to express that change within the language and existing code structure, how to effectively test it, etc. I actively like doing these things. It's fun and that keeps me motivated.
With AI I just type in an English sentence, wait a few minutes, and it does the thing, and then I stare out the window and think about all the things I could be doing with my life that I enjoy more than what just happened. I find my productivity is way down this year since the AI push at work, because I'm just not motivated to work. This isn't the job I signed up for. It's boring now.
The money's nice, I guess. But the joy is gone. Maybe I should go find more joy in another career, even if it pays less.
Oh, I agree entirely. The new paradigm is entirely unsatisfying to me too. It's not the same work that I trained my entire life to get good at, and the new work is not as fun. I trained to get good at this work because I just loved it since I was first introduced to it at ~10. I would have, and was, doing it for free for years.
Unfortunately that doesn't change my outlook on where all this is headed.
Perhaps, then, you can actually empathize with people who don't get value from it :) I used to enjoy the work, now I don't, so I'm posting on HN and daydreaming about other careers, instead of doing something useful.
> I just struggle to see how people cannot use it to get more done.
To be blunt about it, there's a decent chance I'll be quitting this job later this year, largely because of the AI push. I just hate these tools and I do not want to work this way. Losing an employee is a pretty big cost to the company. I guess the AI stuff is probably worth it to them, but there's a downside to it, too.
Yeah I agree with you, and I think a lot of people feel the same. It's totally different now and it's not what I signed up for. Maybe I'll get used to it, idk.
> The business owners I know who have been successful historically are seeing a 2x improvement and are completely unsatisfied. It's shattered their perspective on what is possible, and they're rebuilding their understanding of business from first principles with the new information.
Why are they not satisfied with the 2x improvement? Could you give an example of the "rebuilding" that you mean?
I agree with your take. It was obvious to my VP. It's not obvious to the rest of the enterprise (yet).
But I think it's just a matter of when not if.
My current guess at my slow fortune 500 is ~1-2 years before we see real employment impact.
Startups are happening now at least with my anecdotal conversations. Right now the discussion is more just slower growth than actually doing layoffs. That coin will flip at some point.
> Slashing labor costs while maintaining the status quo is still a big productivity gain.
Maybe I didn't express myself properly, but I think we agree, at least on this point?
Besides this effect, of enabling smaller teams to produce the same results, I think there is a larger effect coming where fundamentally different structures produce the same or better results as last year. I just don't think we've completely figured out what that looks like yet.
In contrast to the current top comment [1], I don't think this is a wise assessment. I'm already seeing companies in my network stall hiring, and in fact start firing. I think if you're not trying to take advantage of this technology today then there may not be a place for you tomorrow.
I find it hard to empathise with people who can't get value out of AI. It feels like they must be in a completely different bubble to me. I trust their experience, but in my own experience, it has made things possible in a matter of hours that I would never have even bothered to try.
Besides the individual contributor angle, where AI can make you code at Nx the rate of before (where N is say... between 0.5 and 10), I think the ownership class are really starting to see it differently from ICs. I initially thought: "wow, this tool makes me twice as productive, that's great". But that extra value doesn't accrue to individuals, it accrues to business owners. And the business owners I'm observing are thinking: "wow, this tool is a new paradigm making many people twice as productive. How far can we push this?"
The business owners I know who have been successful historically are seeing a 2x improvement and are completely unsatisfied. It's shattered their perspective on what is possible, and they're rebuilding their understanding of business from first principles with the new information. I think this is what the people who emerge as winners tomorrow are doing today. The game has changed.
Speaking as an IC who is both more productive than last year, but simultaneously more worried.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47454614