this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] -5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

While I do understand all of the scepticism in this thread, I have to say that I am personally amazed by GitHub Copilot.

I am just ramping up in a new company working on web development with Angular and Spring Boot. Even though I have 0 experience with this and have a background in python and C++, I got productive extremely quickly thanks to Copilot. Of course it does not work without flaws and you still need programming knowledge to wirte proper prompts and fix smaller issues in the resulting code. But without it I would be much further behind. It was even able to fix some issues in the html just based on a description of the issue I am observing in the webpage.

I do not think it will replace all programmers, but I do think it will replace some low level programmers who did repetitive tasks as the good programmers are extremely accelerated by only having to type subsets of what was needed before.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The thing about co-pilot is if you don't do anything with it, it just sits there.

You can't give it a prompt, you actually have to code stuff. It is a more advanced version of autocomplete. Now admittedly, it can write very large chunks of boilerplate code, which is extremely helpful, but it can't code the entire app, and it can't work with natural language prompts, at all.

Technically that makes chatGPT, (It really needs a better name) a more capable coder than copilot.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 3 months ago (4 children)

But coding never was the difficult part. It's understanding a concept, identify a problem and solve it with the possible methods. An AI just makes the coding part faster and gives me options to quicker identify a possible solution. Thankfully there's a never ending pile of projects, issues, todos and stackholder wants, that I don't see how we need less programmers. Maybe we need more to deal with AI, as now people can do a lot more in house instead of outsourcing, but as soon as that threshold is reached, companies will again contact large software companies. If people want to put AI into everything, you need people feeding the AI with company specific data and instruct people to use this AI.

All I see is middle management getting replaced, because instead of a boring meeting, I could just ask an AI.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 3 months ago

Todays news: Rich assholes in suits are idiots and don’t know how their own companies are working. Make sure to share what they’re saying.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 months ago (3 children)

While I highly doubt that becoming true for at least a decade, we can already replace CEOs by AI, you know? (:

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-ceo-artificial-intelligence-b2302091.html

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Good luck debugging AI-generated code...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They think it will be easier than having people write the code from scratch. I don't know shit about coding but I know that's definitely not right.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Really simple. Just ask it to point out the error. Also maybe tell it how the code is wrong. And then hope that the new code didn't introduce new errors in formerly working sections. And that it understood what you meant. In a language that is inherently vague.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 months ago (5 children)

If generative AI hasn't replaced artists, it won't replaced programmers.

Generative AI is much better at art than coding.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Generative AI is much better at art than coding.

Mostly because humans invented this convenient thing called abstract art - and since then tolerates pretty much everything that looks "strange" as art. Must have been a deep learning advocate with a time machine who came up with abstract art.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Don't need to be abstract art, it manages to make many kinds of art.

The difference between art and coding is that if you pick a slightly different color or make a line with slightly the wrong angle, it doesn't change much. In code, however, slight mistakes usually result in bugs.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I meant that thanks to abstract art we're willing to forgive "image glitches" in art by deep learning models.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago

Of course they won't be; somebody has to debug all the crap AI writes.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Let's assume this is true, just for discussion's sake. Who's going to be writing the prompts to get the code then? Surely someone who can understand the requirements, make sure the code functions, and then test it afterwards. That's a developer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I think that's the point? They're saying that those coders will turn into prompt engineers. They didn't say they wouldn't have a job, just that they wouldn't be "coding".

Which I don't believe for a minute. I could see it eventually, but it's not "2 years" away by any stretch of the imagination.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

No, going by them, they just talk to an AI voice and it will pop out a finished product.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't believe for a single instance that what he says is going to happen, this is just a play for funding... But if it were to happen I'm pretty sure most companies would hire anything that moves for those jobs. You have many examples of companies offloading essential parts of their products externally.

I've also seen companies hiring tourism graduates (et al non engineering related) giving them a 3/4 week programming course, slapping a "software engineer" sticker on them and off they are to work on products they have no experience to work on. Then it's up to senior engineers to handle all that crap.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

This explains so much about 1 in 4 IT people I meet.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 3 months ago (2 children)

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

--Lao Tzu...

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 3 months ago

Guys that are putting billions of dollars into their AI companies making grand claims about AI replacing everyone in two years. Whoda thunk it

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

I left my job in fast food to go to school for tech because it seemed like the thing to do and I wanted to have a good life and be able to afford stuff. So I ruined my life getting a piece of paper only for them to enshittify things to oblivion and destroy the job market to the point it's fast food or retail only again. I suppose getting a masters in something is the logical next step but at a certain point a scam's a scam and I'm not digging a deeper hole.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

There are already automated kiosks selling Pizza here and most fast food places already allow people to order using their phone or self-service kiosks.

Delivery is also quickly getting automated with small delivery robots that can likely be remote controlled if they get stuck.

While LLMs cannot reason they can imitate which can be combined with more traditional A.I like utility A.I that makes decisions based on a scoring system. I am guessing LLMs will just be used to make A.I systems talk and execute actions while the actual "inteligence" will be handled through more traditional methods.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Fast food and retail are fucked too tbh

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's not going to happen.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yeah writing the code isn't really the hard part. It's knowing what code to write and how to structure it to work with your existing code or potential future code. Knowing where things might break so you can add the correct tests or alerts. Giving time estimates on how long it will take to build the parts of the system and building in phases to meet your teams needs.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

I've always thought that design and maintenance are the difficult and gruelling parts, and writing code is when you get to relax for a bit. Most of the time you're in maintenance mode, and it's harder than writing new code.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

This. I’m learning a new skill right now & hardly any of it is actual writing— it’s how to arrange the pieces someone else wrote (& which sometimes AI can decently reproduce.)

When you use a computer you don’t start by mining iron, because the thing is already built

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