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Comment by anianz | Hacker News Reader

> Freystaetter and Gottlieb both say that instead of their own generation, they are more worried about Gen Alpha and other young people that come after them, who lose their chance to develop healthy relationships with technologies when they become mandatory and ubiquitous.

I remember similar concerns from Millennials about Gen-Z with the Internet and social media. In the end the Internet and Social Media Gen-Z grew up with was quite different from the one Gen-Y was worried about and the reaction of the new generation to it of course not uniform. Similar developments might happen with Gen Alpha and AI, which seems even more polarizing to me.

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I have three (gen A) kids, of which two are of the age to have opinions on this.

They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right). If I try to spin them a bullshit story, they tell me how can that be true and maybe I got brainwashed by AI. Also they hate ads with a passion.

If anything, I'm incredibly hopeful for newer generations. They'll probably mostly be fine, like most of us were.

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Edit: many responses, and I'll add that in isolation "x is not real work" coming from a kid is maybe equally endearing as it is divisive.

I'll add that of course my kids are a product of their upbringing, and I make no secret of my existential confusion about what it is to program a computer when most of the time i'm just steering the clanker away from obviously dumb mistakes.

My wife is a psychologist working with underprivileged kids, so we always joke that she has the real job and I'm just doing a hobby that pays well. Much of this is them simply parroting that, maybe. We do try to teach them to think beyond dogma and the cultural bias they grow up in, but who can tell. Everyone is in the end to a great extent a product of their environments, and parents.

Finally. They (their generation) will probably be fine, but they might equally well not be. Vapes, tiktok, souped up ebikes, sexting, designer drugs, climate change, refugees, extremism. So many challenges, but you could argue every generation had that. So i choose not to have too much of an opinion and try to stick with gleeful, desperate optimism.

> They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right).

For most of computing history this has been the case, too!

Can't be doing rEaL woRk unless you're flipping front panel switches to input machine code instructions.

I mean what is real work anyways?

Like take finance where people just email broken spreadsheets around all day. If they stop doing that then farmers can't get loans to buy crops which means crops don't get planted and so on-so-forth.

Certainly emailing spreadsheets doesn't seem very "real" but there's actual value in providing liquidity it's just not physically demanding.

On the flip side, professional sports is very physically demanding but can you really call what kids do for fun "real work"?

From the perspective of these kids real work probably involves working with your hands. I don't think we need to get too upset over what people who have yet to enter the workforce have to say about "real work". They need to be employed for a few years before they learn the lesson that almost ALL work is fake work.

My definition of real work is - can I point at something and be proud of it? It might not even be something physical (but often is) and my involvement may not be obvious (say, managing the spreadsheets for a building project), but there it is, the thing I worked on.

That seems like more of test of self-esteem. I can work on something yet still not be proud of it, for example.

Yes - but it’s part of it for me. Digging a giant hole would be real hard work, and something I can point at, but I might not be proud of it; it may have no point.

Sure, and my goal is to not that part away from you.

Just to clarify, if said hole had no point, then would it be real work or not? What if the hole was merely a step in a grand plan? As in, if the end result provides a sense of pride, then does the aggregated amount of real vs. fake work that lead to final product have any bearing on the pride of the final product?

I guess it comes down to the teleology - the reason why the work is done. If the end has no relation to the work (e.g., it comes down to the dollars) then I think you’re going to be a bit unsatisfied no matter how well remunerated. Terms like “pointless” and “busywork” come into play.

It if makes you tired and you're tired of it, it's work.

Machine operation is real work! :)

Yes, well, my youngest (15) tells me all the same things, while simultaneously constantly asking Gemini to help them write code for their game they're building in RPG Maker.

They'll see.

"Children are never shy to tell the truth." Your comment makes me hopeful as well.

In general those "Generation XYZ is threatened by this, thinks that" tropes often annoy me. I'm born somewhere between Gen-Y and Gen-Z and those boundaries feel totally arbitrary.

You have smart kids.

Once you use AI for all your work you won't be growing anymore, just fading away

AI is turning all of us into managers and we’ve KNOW forever that managers don’t know anything ;)

This smells to me an awful lot like the

"You're not a real ham if you don't use Morse code", "You're not a real machinist if you use CNC", "Your mechanical drawing skills are going to atrophy if you use CAD CAM. "You should manually tape PCB layouts, so you have more control.

And another grandfather's favorite, "Why do you want to use the forklift? You won't always have one, and a pry bar and rollers are good enough, and you learn the value of real work."

I'd say it's more like you're not a real driver if you use Waymo to get around everywhere.

Sure, but I'm a software developer, not a typist.

A delivery person is still delivering stuff, even if it turns out that using a waymo is cheaper/faster.

An L7 SWE TLM at Google once told me that he enjoys building software, he just doesn't like the data entry parts - that's why he was a manager and not an IC.

I think there are a lot of ICs who may need to re-evaluate what their job actually entails and what they're paid for.

I think there's a big difference between "your drawing skills will atrophy if you use CAD to draw for you" and "your brain will atrophy if you ask an LLM to think for you." Personally I don't judge people for being unable to draw, but I do judge them for being unable to think for themselves.

I judge the shit out of people who can't draw AND bill themselves as visual artists so there is that.

I can't believe I am about to post this comment, but I feel a compulsion:

The human mind adapts the best it can for its environment. While not being able to think for oneself is highly detrimental, there may come a time in the distant future where strong abilities to think and reason are less valuable/important. I know it may come off as absolutely ridiculous, but I do not think (no pun intended) that such an uncomfortable idea violates any principles of evolution.

I would argue our ability to think and reason about our environment has been paramount to the survival humanity. Just as hunting abilities were paramount to the ancestors of both my pet dogs.

However, both my dogs would make horrible hunters and would likely starve or die of exposure if left in the woods. But the ability to hunt has been useless to my dogs for their entire lives and for many generations prior.

Both my dogs still have remnants of a prey-drive, and I would argue humans will likely retain some ability to think and reason. But just because an ability is valuable now does not guarantee its future value.

The rise in literacy likely contributed great harm to the ability for one memorize entire epics like ancient Greek poets. However, is there really much value in the ability to memorize an entire Greek epic?

Not to mention, I have met some individuals in my life who would likely cause less harm to themselves and others had an LLM thought on their behalf (I'm kidding, of course).

If we run with your theory that the human mind adapts and thinking becomes less valuable that should be setting off alarmbells. What kind of world would be one where thinking is not considered a valuable skill. If I thought that was true I would be in favour of restricting AI use to certain workflows.

> such an uncomfortable idea violates any principles of evolution.

Evolution isn't a normative thing. It's perfectly possible for us to evolve into something that morally shouldn't exist, especially in an artificial environment.

They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right)

Hm interesting

So they are making the distinction between regular "human brain" coding and AI-assisted coding?

Regular coding could be described as "not doing the thing yourself, but telling the computer what to do"

(FWIW I do think there is a huge difference; however I am not sure the general public has a very good idea of what "programming" is. I remember having some code up on my screen and my educated family was confused, even at the concept)

Most actions can be viewed in highly reductionist manner.

Even J.S. Bach was aware of the same concept:

> "There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself."

~ Johann Sebastian Bach

Iirc the piano was considered uncouth and unskilled because it was “too easy”.

Hey, I sent you an email just now.

> If anything, I'm incredibly hopeful for newer generations. They'll probably mostly be fine, like most of us were.

The current state of the world begs to differ with "most of us being mostly fine". Critical thinking skills and the ability to make wise decisions among the various electorates seem to be in a incredibly shitty state.

Anecdotally, Gen Z-ers as a whole are definitely not better at this; they're easily swayed by flashy memes, TikToks and other forms of disinformation. Where younger people used to have a more society minded, leftist lean (before ultimately becoming jaded), they more than ever side with right wing populists from a young age. Not all of them, but a much larger chunk than before.

Maybe requiring large swaths of people to “make the right decisions” as the electorate was a problem from the start.

Well the point is you tell it what to do isn't it? Unless your job is so replaceable and generic there's little actual direction needed?

I still can barely have a convo with it where it doesn't just make up total unworkable bollocks.

It can manage some coding though tbf, but again, not sure how far a completely non-tech user would find it.

The No True Scotsman fallacy strikes again.

Ask them for me, what is a "real" job? If anything, your children, as well as many others, are just exemplifying Effort Justification.

Why is suffering a requirement for something to be meritorious? While I agree that succeeding generations will be mostly fine, I also believe they will perpetuate much of the same regressive thinking as generations before them.

Also, please do not mistake my words. I do not believe LLMs are the be-all and end-all they are hyped up to be nor do I find them to be useless either. In a pragmatic sense, the entire purpose of programming is to provide a solution to a problem. Whatever else the human mind attributes to programming is merely fantasy that the ego ascribes to actions.

I say this all as someone that still mainly writes USDA certified organic code.

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