this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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Don’t learn to code: Nvidia’s founder Jensen Huang advises a different career path::Don't learn to code advises Jensen Huang of Nvidia. Thanks to AI everybody will soon become a capable programmer simply using human language.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

lisa_su-3

"I'm coming fo dat ass, Jensen"

Lisa Su, probably.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Just because you're the CEO of a big company, it doesn't mean you know what you're talking about. In this case it's clear he doesn't. You may say "but the company makes a lot of money" and that's not a point in his favor either, as this is a clear example of survivor bias. Coding is going nowhere and the companies laying off people are just a proof CEOs don't know what they are doing.

For years there have been open source solutions ready for basically any purpose, and if that has not made coders useless, nothing will. Maybe they will change designation, but people that understand what's going on at a technical level will always be necessary.

There have been some situations in the past few years that made the situation less clear-cut, but that doesn't make coders optional.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"Time to pull the ladder up!"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's how this statement and the state of the industry feels. The ai tools are empowering senior engineers to be as productive as a small team, so even my company laid off all the junior engineers.

So who's coming up behind the senior engineers? Is the ai they use going to take the reigns when they retire? Nope, the companies will be fucked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Nope, the companies will be fucked.

"That's a future CEO's problem, not mine!" - Current CEO

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

After using co pilot and other AI code tools it's obvious to see the limitations of it, programming is a lot more than just writing "ok" code

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Good thing I'm majoring in computer engineering instead of computer science. I have a backdoor through electrical engineering.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I don't think he's seen the absolute fucking drivel that most developers have been given as software specs before now.

Most people don't even know what they want, let alone be able to describe it. I've often been given a mountain of stuff, only to go back and forth with the customer to figure out what problem they're actually trying to solve, and then do it in like 3 lines of code in a way that doesn't break everything else, or tie a maintenance albatross around my neck for the next ten years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Yesterday, I had to deal with a client that literally contradicted himself 3 times in 20 minutes, about whether a specific Date field should be obligatory or not. My boss and a colleague who were nearby started laughing once the client went away, partly because I was visibly annoyed at the indecision.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

And that's really what all these guys saying "AI will take er jobs" don't understand. Good programmers are not just good coders, coding is really the easy part. They're also good analysts and listeners. I understand what he's saying - if you spend time accruing specific domain knowledge instead of computer science then you can perhaps make better, bespoke solutions because the "coding" can be handled by AI. But in present day, AI makes garbage code all the time and you'll be left there not being able to do amything about it because it doesn't make any sense to you. So who do you call? Someone who can code. Even if we get to this hypothetical dream scenario where you tell an AI to do something and it just does it perfect (gigantic IF), who's making that AI? The interface for it? The important safety nets to make sure it doesn't go on a rampage? Itself? Too much context is already lost in conversations between humans, let alone an AI. I can think of one kind of AI that would be able to do it perfectly though (assuming AIs could be perfected, that is), and that's an AI pre-equipped with full understanding of the domain. But then in that case, why do you need the human in the mix at all?

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