Quote from: RE on Nov 19, 2023, 07:28 PMUnfortunately, I have used up my last free article for the month from behind the New Yorker paywall, so I haven't read the article.  I figured it might interest K-Dog tho.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/a-coder-considers-the-waning-days-of-the-craft

A Coder considers the waning days of the Craft

RE

Thank you it is a good article.

It is about coding and how GPT-4 can cough up code on demand.  The contention is that the programmer is as out of work as Ned Ludd.  Sort of because in the end the author writes:

QuoteComputing is not yet overcome. GPT-4 is impressive, but a layperson can't wield it the way a programmer can. I still feel secure in my profession. In fact, I feel somewhat more secure than before.

Besides agreeing with the author, it seems I can one-up the professionals.  I can get results from GPT-3 --- they apparently need GPT-4.

GPT-3 helps me code but only because I know what the fuck I am doing, and because I can tell it to fuck off any time I want.  I catch as many mistakes it makes, as it catches of mine.  Lately I catch more!  The time it takes to tell it to do something can take as long as doing it myself.  The biggest payoff is that A.I. has given me more confidence in my own abilities.

GPT-3 is an idiot savant.  Stupid, but with vast knowledge.  If you can ask the right question, hours of searching Stack Overflow are avoided.  Stack Overflow was the old way of finding what you needed to know when you got stuck and needed the secret sauce.  Stack Overflow is a network of programmers who ask and answer questions.  I have not contributed there much, but my reputation is really good.

A. I. is a road on which programmers may drive.  But if you have to go cross country, a coder has to hike alone because A.I. will faceplant on the first tree.

* This thing about programmers being put out of work?  Didn't B. Gates start flying coders in by the thousands about thirty years ago because there were no American coders to be had?

Yes, that bullshit flew and NOBODY cared. 

Consequently software employment is a bit of a rigged game as it is now.  So A.I. making a pig dirty?  I do not think so.  Many talented people have been unemployed in America for a very long time.  A.I. did not make that happen.  A.I did not screw them.

People made that happen.  People screwed them.

Swagath is 150 feet west of where I work in a warehouse doing my undercover proletarian investigative work.  I was investigating today.  It is one of at least 100 Indian Businesses within a mile of work.  I am NOT exaggerating. 

You are looking north.  I park next to the pet clinic.  And I do like curry.

I can code.  I can also throw a sixty pound box onto a shelf that is seven feet high.  Not a small feat for someone my age.  Proletarian undercover work is not without its rewards.

Thanks Bill.  My heart will flutter with gratitude when I throw the next box up on the shelf.  And thank you A.I. for showing me I really do have mojo.