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DukkyDrake t1_isq5s5a wrote

It will allow programmers to produce more, that could lead to needing less programmers to get the job done. But it's simply incapable of dispensing with the need for programmers. The industry will eventually largely migrate more to low/no code platforms, that will impact programmers more than advancing AI in the near term.

> so this discussion won't be flagged as wildly speculative / low effort and removed.

You don't ever have to worry about that.

>Thereby increasing the rate of acceleration toward a transformative AI and singularity?

Yes, if your definition of the singularity is more aligned with the broad technological and economic progress of human civilization, and less with specifically the creation of an artificial superintelligence.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_isq6u2z wrote

>You don't ever have to worry about that.

Every single post I've ever submitted here has had that happen. Talked to the mods and they said my threads are too low effort/speculative. But anyway.

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>But it's simply incapable of dispensing with the need for programmers

What do you mean by this? Incapable how?

But yes, if they migrate to low/no code platforms that's exactly what I'm getting at. The skill level will plummet and there will be a huge pool of people capable of entering text to code. The higher engineers will likely remain highly paid, but their positions will be extremely competitive.

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DukkyDrake t1_isqew3p wrote

>entering text to code

If you're getting raw code from Codex or anything like it, you will need a programmer to deal with it. It's too low level and lacks the domain knowledge to code a usable system, and from text prompts from someone who doesn't know how to code. The programmer decides what functions are needed to satisfy a working system. How to integrate code from Codex into the system, etc.

I've been developing bespoke automation solutions for businesses my adult life, it's still hard work and thus expensive. My cheapest programmer makes $137k/yr, I would replace them all in a heartbeat. Nothing short of AGI will allow me to replace them, Codex et al. will improve productivity at most.

> Low/No-code is a software development approach that requires little to no coding to build applications and processes. Instead of using complex programming languages, you can employ visual interfaces with basic logic and drag-and-drop capabilities in a low code development platform.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_isqj3qh wrote

Do you envision the "text to anything" AI we see cropping up as incapable as it is now? I have to assume the next iteration of GPT or whatever will be markedly improved. I think that comes down to the question of how long will it be until someone can enter text like "make a program that does so and so" and it does it. Give another prompt to edit any undesirable results, and then you finish.

I know this is a total oversimplification of programming, but I certainly don't think it requires full AGI to do that sort of thing. I don't know how large your team is, but well before AGI could probably replace most of them if Codex evolves at a rate anything like other AI that uses this approach.

But the real question I'm asking isn't really about the skilled members of your team over the next 5 to 10 years. I'm asking about right now, are the prospects of beginning a career or schooling to learn programming assumed to be fruitful? There's no denying programmers are skilled workers now, but will this tech open the flood gate for anyone with the ability to do basic text prompts? That would effectively reduce the amount of skilled programmers by a great percentage, making the skilled positions much more competitive and the unskilled ones much lower pay.

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DukkyDrake t1_isqmbtz wrote

I envisioned AI being able to reproduce reality in bits and bytes with perfect verisimilitude. These first flawed attempts don't really move the needle in the real world. It's easy to think the gap is close since it went from 0 to something in a decade, but the last 0.099% is a mile away. That last tiny bit is probably the hardest and keeps current AI from being broadly economically useful.

I would still recommend programming to a high school grad interested in the field. Even if the future pans out, programming skills would still be a great jumping off point to many related areas.

Btw, my time horizon for AGI that's capable of doing most economically valuable tasks is 2030.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_isqnpnt wrote

>Btw, my time horizon for AGI that's capable of doing most economically valuable tasks is 2030.

We're in the same boat. Realistically, my question could be applied to basically any sector. Just a matter of when. But yes, of course if it's 2030 before a possible disruption of full automation it doesn't matter what career someone chooses.

But it's impossible to think that far ahead, and the fact programming could very likely be the main subject in the crosshairs for various reasons (it's the end goal for AI?), I'm apprehensive about further studying. I'm not in high school, it's more of a second career situation and time is of the essence to me, as in I don't want to gamble on the wrong horse.

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DukkyDrake t1_isqqes3 wrote

If AGI hits in 2030, I expect it will take decades for the effects to spread through society.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_iss7jui wrote

Decades eh? I'm probably a little less conservative than that. My feeling is large corporations will take advantage of it it as quickly as possible. It could also have a profound effect on society. I think of it as the industrial revolution, condensed into a week.

But who knows.

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DukkyDrake t1_istxsyf wrote

Physical products will never scale as fast as digital ones.

What happens to prices when there is an oversupply. The capital that creates production capacity isn't doing it because their owners are humanitarians, they expect a profit. It takes controlled production and supply to maintain markets. If prices collapse, production will follow, even if that production costs very little. Unless every individual has their own pet AGI, I expect the same forces and dynamics to be in play in society.

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everything_in_sync t1_isu44v3 wrote

This. Any programmer that has used githubs copilot which uses codex knows that we are extremely far away from ai being able to write code by itself. I used the free 3 month trial and it was more of a pain than anything. However, it was really good at writing comments describing what my code did.

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