Hacker News Reader

Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

Software engineers ignoring AI is like retail ignoring Amazon and the internet.

80% of shopping is done in stores. Off line retail is still quite successful despite Amazon.

But they were successful because they adapted. Most stores that completely ignored the Internet failed. The successful ones adapted.

OTOH The ones that tried competing directly against Amazon failed at a much higher rate.

That suggests the middle road: neither ignoring AI nor embracing it completely. Instead concentrate on the many strengths we have as humans.

View on HN

Alternatively, "software engineers ignoring AI is like television producers ignoring 3D TV" or "like games companies ignoring the 'metaverse'", or "the food industry ignoring the juicero" or "the medical testing industry ignoring Theranos" or...

For every Big New Thing that actually becomes a Big New Thing, there are many which become, at best, a historical curiosity.

I’m using AI every day and I don’t see why I would ever stop. It’s not doing my job for me but it’s a much better way for me to learn how to do my job. There is undeniable value in it. I don’t think scale is going to bring us to AGI but what we have now is a big deal already.

> I’m using AI every day and I don’t see why I would ever stop

If you have to pay for its full actual real costs, you might decide it's not worth it.

(All the AI startups are losing money even on their paid tiers. Google and Apple and Meta can eat the costs for some time, but at some point they'll have to try to recoup their investments.)

Maybe but that doesn’t have anything to do with its real life value and utility today like the comment I replied to was disputing.

As a software engineer, I find AI to be boring. Sure, the technology itself is nothing short of miraculous, but I ultimately program because it’s fun to solve puzzles, manipulate symbols, and architect solutions in service of a project. Swapping out the labor for a black box just sucks the life out of the whole thing, since getting to the end and popping out a product was never the point.

I come to HN to revel in the joys of programming and hackery, not to min-max my career. And if I could cull AI-related content from the front page, I would definitely do so as well.

Sounds like a good advice.

Unfortunately, my feelings tell me otherwise. What is it that we humans are better at? Is it a chore of managing people, sitting on meetings and aligning stakeholders' interests? Feels to me more like a politician job than an engineering.

Humans are the ones with the money. They exchange it for goods and services.

So if you want money, you need to provide a good or service that other humans want. Humans have an inside advantage providing goods and services to humans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com