So the AI can learn to use APIs that follow perfect RESTful semantics, are fully documented and intuitively behave exactly like one would expect.
Our jobs are safe.
Our jobs are safe.
But what about if the path is actually /beer and you have to pass a hidden undocumented query parameter called ?wine=1 for it to give you wines. But then the response is still of Beer objects (because that's the only thing the API validator would allow), so you have to map all the Beer fields to their equivalent Wine counterparts. But not all of them make sense, so you have to ignore them. Which ones? Ask the engineering team. Turns out the guy who wrote all this left years ago, and no one remember how it works. Someone digs up a link to a documentation page, but that internal wiki was taken down and so it returns a 404. You ping a sysadmin to see if they kept any backups. He points you to a few PBs worth of SQL dumps from an internal migration a few years ago and asks you to take a look in those. You simultaneously have to write up a status update for senior leadership which is due by end of day and give them a revised launch date for the project. They want to know why it can't be done in half the time.
The day an AI can figure all this out, I will be looking for another career. Until then I'm fine.
If you let the AI both create the API and use it, you can avoid the problems humans create.
So given time the AI could no longer debug new software as there would be no programmers only assistants.
Unless all jobs are unnecessary, you just change your job.
People seem to assume that if robots can code, all coders are out of a job, but I mean, if I didn't have to code, I'd just start all the businesses I've always wanted to start because like all the business people who are going to be replacing me with a bot, I too will have the time to replace business people with my bots.
Of course by this stage, if coders are replaced, pretty much all jobs will be replaced, millions, maybe billions of people will be jobless and without any ability to earn a wage, in other words, you won't be the only one with real problems when coders lose their jobs, it's just a matter of time till most jobs follow.
Not sure what we're hoping to get out of the AI future, but it seems like we're very intent on finding out at this point.
Maybe we're all just working towards making Ray Kurzeweil immortal at this stage?
My gut tells me though, we'll just be augmenting ourselves for a long time, and things will become faster paced.
The most I can imagine coming out of this is that those "app creator" apps/websites will actually work. So you can get a reasonably functional app without necessarily being a software engineer. A current-day software engineer could end up with the capabilities of a pre-2023 VP of Engineering in charge of a 200 person department.
That doesn't mean there'll be no work, it just means the work will be different and possibly much more interesting
something funny about the way I interact with ChatGPT, I basically never give a shit about correcting mistakes or bothering with good grammar because no matter what, it pretty much always understands me. and it's insanely good at solving tip-of-my-tongue type problems.
I guess maybe we should go back to SOAP to eek out a few more months of job security?
Given what things looked 10 years ago, and what was revolutionary back then (ImageNet challenge) - it's hard to comprehend what state of the art will look like 10 years from now.
Either I’ll be well prepared for unemployment or I’ll have plump investment accounts and still be employed. Good outcome regardless.
I’m not expecting the singularity within that timeframe nor do I think we need it for lots of disruption in knowledge-based work. Still, I’m leaning towards a near future where these AI tools augment our capabilities more than the alternative where we lose all our jobs.