MIT Professor David Tinsdale believes that concerns over automation may be overstated.
“Artificial Intelligence can already beat most programmers in their three major skill-sets: writing code, automating repetitive tasks, and lying about their level of knowledge,” the Professor claims. “However, that doesn’t mean it will eliminate programming jobs. It’s just going to the nature of the work programmers do. For instance: previously, programmers spent most of their days fixing errors and writing boilerplate code. In the future, they’ll have new responsibilities – like driving an uber or filming homemade pornography.”
It's going to be outsourcing on steroids. So many folks employed either talking to the AI to get it to write the right code, or fixing the shitty code the AI spits out.
It needs to hurry up and happen then. And hopefully corporations won't decide it's more worthwhile to rebuild it with an ai that does a 1000% worse job for 0% of the pay.
They can try that too and like you said 1000% worse job. Once people start losing clients and losing money for their stupid decisions we will see results. Right now developers "translate" dumb ideas into good ones. If they get rid of the developers then AI will just take the dumb ideas and implement them as best they can. Dumbly
True, this is what I did years ago (although I'd been programming on and off since I was a teenager tbh). I'm not gonna eat the onion but the job market was a lot less competitive 10 years ago. I'm just fortunate because I became a senior developer around the time of COVID and I wasn't just starting out as an inexperienced dev.
Actually quite sad that I've always wanted to do this, yet the chance I get to make a career over it due to age, I wasn't able to make it in time for the availability and money
My dad tried to push me to computer work when I was young, I'm glad I didn't listen.
I became a diesel mechanic and am now a specialised crane technician, sure it harder on the body but I don't foresee my job being replaced by Ai and automation in my life time.
If anything the diagnosis work would become easier, much like the introduction of on board diagnostic facilities have already done for us.
The way electricity works though you can never exactly pinpoint an electrical fault with 100 percent accuracy on a machine without physically looking. Along with that limitation the robots to go in and make repairs are a way off still.
I worked as a licensed aircraft mechanic for years, watched my coworkers die from disease and injury, destroyed my body, and did it all for basically no money.
I did a coding bootcamp and and doubled my salary + plus wfh + better benefits.
Blue collar work is exploitation to the highest degree.
Automation has been replacing your job btw, just indirectly. More reliability, better preventative procedures, better chemical engineering, process improvements, and automation of related and dependent fields means that equipment needs less maintenance overall.
Software development jobs are not actually being replaced by 'ai' and the automation has to actually be engineered by someone.
In the same way that an llm may be able to naively troubleshoot a problem, it can also naively achieve a programming solution. That's it though, llms arent solving the problems that computer science is solving.
After working on airplanes I worked as an applications developer (and pseudo systems engineer) for an industrial automation company, the physical machines we manufactured completely eradicated jobs, a single bespoke robot cell took what was 30-50 people and replaced it with three people monitoring it. Those 47 people are now in competition with you for your job.
Like you said in your own post, advancements in technology are making your job easier, which in turn lowers the bar of entry and the pay scale with it. Easier and faster work (increased efficiency) means you need less people to do the work.
Too many people think 'automation' is a robot coming in and replacing your job, sometimes that is the case, but more often than not, it's things like digitizing records, excel spreadsheets, process improvements, and micro automation (like tools that can scan and diagnose every trouble code and provide the common troubleshooting paths, instead of needing to watch a flashing pattern and look that pattern up manually in a physical book)
Every job has automation risk, it's just not always clear.
Yeah I understand that my job will go away eventually, fortunately it won't effect me in my life time. Specialised skills in a specialised industry are worth a fortune.
What also helps me is I teach my trade to others, I'm not the dumb cunt on the ground doing all the labour every day all day.
I wouldn't recommend getting into my trade today to anyone however. It's hard on the body but if you have the work ethic and knowledge there's a fortune to be made in Australia.
I'm a diesel technician and I wish I had gotten into tech work/programming instead. Honestly working towards a career change, but after 12 years of experience, a family etc, I make too much to change careers.
Earlier this year I almost took the jump to lecturing. Was offered the job and everything but I'm still to young to make the change and take the pay cut. In another 10 years when I'm in my 40s it would be a better option, but in the next ten years I'm set to make so much more money that I can't justify moving while my body is able
Like many fields, computer work is still good if you’re drawn to it as a legitimate interest of yours. I’m part of a software engineering group working on embedded systems. I think the other engineers and our boss all really like what we have going, but you can tell everybody is a proper computer nerd and not the “I heard there was money in computers” type.
Admittedly though, generative AI is hitting certain segments of the field harder than others.