"It’s also the nature of the agent automation to feel more like delegation to a clueless junior developer than automation, and that changes your relationship to the work.
In woodworking, the power tools didn’t reduce the woodworker’s emotional investment in what they made. The worker still felt like they’d made that thing out of wood themselves.
Some woodworkers might still use hand tools for a variety of reasons – some of them romantic, some of them, you know, just because it’s more fun.
But having a table saw doesn’t make you feel like you’ve asked somebody else to make the shelf, or table, or chair.
The nature of automation with Large Language Model tools feels substantially different from prior attempts at automation in coding. It’s an abstraction that feels like a delegation, not an automation, and separates you from the output.
That has an effect of making you feel less invested in the output and that takes away much the joy of coding. The flow state is also gone, the sort of focused state of mind that you get into when you’re really deep into solving a problem."
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This viewpoint, expressed by the author, makes perfect sense to me, but I don't see this as an AI or software industry problem, I see it as merely a recognition that something has changed. Well, yes, it has, and the question is not whether you are okay with it or not, but, rather, how are you going to adapt to the enviroment you inhabit that just changed ?
The goal for developers, either alone or in teams, is the same as it ever was ... ship a useful product. We've added data compression to our products and workflows for decades, and now AI allows us to add time compression.
Its exactly the same as the woodworkers relationship with power tools. The person building the desk still has to know how to design and assemble and ship a desk, it just takes less time with power tools. AI seems and feels no different to me.
To all my fellow developers, the identity crisis that results from the 5 year old next door being able to develop an app is optional. Adaptation to the environment in which you now live is not.
When you're done lamenting, you can get back to inventing, and show that 5 year old you're still the man. ;D
( 2 cents from a developer and woodworker, nothing more )
> The goal for developers, either alone or in teams, is the same as it ever was ... ship a useful product.
I think this is an oversimplification. It's a variation of the response to the complaint that "devs are just being turned into managers now" with "but they're still making things, and isn't doing that why they became devs?"
I'd argue that, in this scenario, they're not. If I make a product specification and hand that off to another person to make something to that specification, I haven't made that thing, the other person has.
To reduce the job to just shipping things seems like an oversimplification to me because there's a reason why devs chose software engineering as the means of doing that. Why not make something else in a different field entirely? There has to be something about creating software that fulfills needs beyond just shipping.
It's a bit like saying the purpose of company is to generate profit. That's true, but it's so much of an oversimplification as to be misleading. If the point is just profit, why does the company make whatever it is they make, rather than make the thing that is the easiest to maximize profit doing?
It's because there is a lot more to it than just that. Oversimplification distorts reality and makes it difficult to really understand the situation.
> the question is not whether you are okay with it or not, but, rather, how are you going to adapt to the enviroment you inhabit that just changed ?
For a whole lot of people, the question really is whether or not they're OK with it. If they can't be OK with it, then there's no point in adapting to the new environment. It will make them unhappy. Better to escape and find something else that has a chance of being fulfilling.
That said, we're not (yet, anyway) actually in a world where all software development involves outsourcing to genAI. A huge number of software development positions have yet to be changed at all. They aren't really in the silicon valley/forest circles, but they do exist.
AI doesn't care how we feel. Neither do table saws. Both are tools that exist, and we have the option to use them or not. Neither are useful for every task, and if you enjoy playing Minecraft under self imposed restrictive tool usage rules, you can still do that.
If you just enjoy the sheer problem solving dimension of software development, and never intend to ship or use anything, and want to do pure research, go ahead. If its never being shared or released and its just going to die with you, then its by definition "inconsequential" and how you feel about it is your business.
Relocating to a new environment, when the old one no longer suits you, is an adaptation.
From what little I've studied history, it seems emotions run high among the population when truly disruptive technologies have emerged. Some are enthusiastic, some are terrified, some number of workers are displaced, etc etc etc.
Everything changes. Nothing changes.
I proposed to a co-worker 30 years ago the question "I wonder if software will someday write itself ? Like recursion ? A program that writes a program ?"
He burst out in laughter and called me an idiot.
At this point, I can conclude the idea made him anxious, and I'm probably not a complete idiot. V
From the article:
"It’s also the nature of the agent automation to feel more like delegation to a clueless junior developer than automation, and that changes your relationship to the work.
In woodworking, the power tools didn’t reduce the woodworker’s emotional investment in what they made. The worker still felt like they’d made that thing out of wood themselves.
Some woodworkers might still use hand tools for a variety of reasons – some of them romantic, some of them, you know, just because it’s more fun.
But having a table saw doesn’t make you feel like you’ve asked somebody else to make the shelf, or table, or chair.
The nature of automation with Large Language Model tools feels substantially different from prior attempts at automation in coding. It’s an abstraction that feels like a delegation, not an automation, and separates you from the output.
That has an effect of making you feel less invested in the output and that takes away much the joy of coding. The flow state is also gone, the sort of focused state of mind that you get into when you’re really deep into solving a problem."
--------
This viewpoint, expressed by the author, makes perfect sense to me, but I don't see this as an AI or software industry problem, I see it as merely a recognition that something has changed. Well, yes, it has, and the question is not whether you are okay with it or not, but, rather, how are you going to adapt to the enviroment you inhabit that just changed ?
The goal for developers, either alone or in teams, is the same as it ever was ... ship a useful product. We've added data compression to our products and workflows for decades, and now AI allows us to add time compression.
Its exactly the same as the woodworkers relationship with power tools. The person building the desk still has to know how to design and assemble and ship a desk, it just takes less time with power tools. AI seems and feels no different to me.
To all my fellow developers, the identity crisis that results from the 5 year old next door being able to develop an app is optional. Adaptation to the environment in which you now live is not.
When you're done lamenting, you can get back to inventing, and show that 5 year old you're still the man. ;D
( 2 cents from a developer and woodworker, nothing more )
> The goal for developers, either alone or in teams, is the same as it ever was ... ship a useful product.
I think this is an oversimplification. It's a variation of the response to the complaint that "devs are just being turned into managers now" with "but they're still making things, and isn't doing that why they became devs?"
I'd argue that, in this scenario, they're not. If I make a product specification and hand that off to another person to make something to that specification, I haven't made that thing, the other person has.
To reduce the job to just shipping things seems like an oversimplification to me because there's a reason why devs chose software engineering as the means of doing that. Why not make something else in a different field entirely? There has to be something about creating software that fulfills needs beyond just shipping.
It's a bit like saying the purpose of company is to generate profit. That's true, but it's so much of an oversimplification as to be misleading. If the point is just profit, why does the company make whatever it is they make, rather than make the thing that is the easiest to maximize profit doing?
It's because there is a lot more to it than just that. Oversimplification distorts reality and makes it difficult to really understand the situation.
> the question is not whether you are okay with it or not, but, rather, how are you going to adapt to the enviroment you inhabit that just changed ?
For a whole lot of people, the question really is whether or not they're OK with it. If they can't be OK with it, then there's no point in adapting to the new environment. It will make them unhappy. Better to escape and find something else that has a chance of being fulfilling.
That said, we're not (yet, anyway) actually in a world where all software development involves outsourcing to genAI. A huge number of software development positions have yet to be changed at all. They aren't really in the silicon valley/forest circles, but they do exist.
AI doesn't care how we feel. Neither do table saws. Both are tools that exist, and we have the option to use them or not. Neither are useful for every task, and if you enjoy playing Minecraft under self imposed restrictive tool usage rules, you can still do that.
If you just enjoy the sheer problem solving dimension of software development, and never intend to ship or use anything, and want to do pure research, go ahead. If its never being shared or released and its just going to die with you, then its by definition "inconsequential" and how you feel about it is your business.
Relocating to a new environment, when the old one no longer suits you, is an adaptation.
From what little I've studied history, it seems emotions run high among the population when truly disruptive technologies have emerged. Some are enthusiastic, some are terrified, some number of workers are displaced, etc etc etc.
Everything changes. Nothing changes.
I proposed to a co-worker 30 years ago the question "I wonder if software will someday write itself ? Like recursion ? A program that writes a program ?"
He burst out in laughter and called me an idiot.
At this point, I can conclude the idea made him anxious, and I'm probably not a complete idiot. V