God designing us in an emergent manner or through a static blueprint are the same thing. Someone had to create the laws, the genetic algorithm idea itself and all of these components and the environment for it to operate within never mind things like colors, matter etc. Evolutionists cant see the forest for the trees.
> “ God designing us in an emergent manner or through a static blueprint are the same thing.”
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you, but to me it seems like you have no argument with evolutionists. Your beliefs seem to permit evolution. I think your disagreement is actually with people that see evolution as evidence for atheism.
God designing us in an emergent manner or through a static blueprint are the same thing. Someone had to create the laws, the genetic algorithm idea itself and all of these components and the environment for it to operate within never mind things like colors, matter etc. Evolutionists cant see the forest for the trees.
Then that's not believing in creationism, that's believing in evolution. You wouldn't "not believe in fusion theory" because you believe God created the sun through the process of inventing a universe that sustains nuclear reactions. You would just believe in fusion, as a part of God's creation.
This is unknown and a quite anthropomorphic view on the universe. Just because we can create things doesn't mean we ourselves were created, even in the way you're talking about in the First Mover argument.
It seems you may have misunderstood the original argument. The iterative approach suggests increments so minute at each step that they wouldn't significantly impact an organism's survival at any given time. Also given the extremely slow process of evolution and the relatively short number of iterations it is infeasible to suggest such a solution. If a person would like to create an iPhone it's easy to tell them to start with a shitty scrap of metal and work from there. You can make that sort of argument as a solution for creating anything but it is clearly not feasible.
No, I understand the argument, it is just built on a false assumption about how the iterations work. That a change is small does not make its effects insignificant. A single codon change could profoundly alter the protein it encodes, and even a small change to a protein or its expression can have a massive effect on the organism. It's not the structures of an orgnaism that mutate, it's the instructions that generate those structures which mutate. Imagine for example a typo on a blueprint - where there was supposed to be a " instead there is a ' and suddenly instead of an 8 inch air vent, now you have an 8 foot door. There is no intermediate step where you have a useless 2 foot hole.
Evolution is not a slow process, it is an irregular process. The odds of a useful mutation popping up at any given time is low, but once it pops up it's there immediately. Yes, an evolutionary process could never make an iphone, but no is claiming that evolution produced the iphone. The complex systems evolution produces are things where all the changes are individually useful.
>so minute at each step that they wouldn't significantly impact an organism's survival at any given time.
That's the thing. Evolution isn't "survival of the fittest" or even "driven by more efficient anything", evolution is simply; if you die before you pass on your genes, you don't pass on your genes. Over long enough time scales, with large enough populations, with tight enough tolerances and strict enough niches, the system roughly approximates a directed iteration of more efficient parts.
Nothing about evolution prevents carrying forward explicitly negative mutations! Nothing about evolution prevents carrying completely unused functionality and features! Nothing about evolution guarantees monotonically increasing fitness!
The giraffe has a certain nerve that goes from it's brain, all the way down around it's aorta, back up it's neck, to it's tongue. It does this, because in the fish we all evolved from, such a detour was less than a centimeter longer than an "optimal" path, and as each next generation went in different directions, it's just not that big a deal. A few hundred extra calories in development, and rare instances of a negative injury outcome are just not going to get fixed, because evolution is almost never vigilant. Most higher level animals have mating behaviors that explicitly favor "wasted" energy, including the long neck of giraffes! Sexual selection has a stronger influence on most animals than evolutionary pressure.
> Also given the extremely slow process of evolution and the relatively short number of iterations it is infeasible to suggest such a solution
This is silly. The vast majority of the ground work for complex life was developed by single celled organisms that produced a new generation every half hour, there were billions of these little creatures experiencing basically any possible mutation all the time, and a water droplet with a billion short lived single cells is exactly the kind of tight tolerance, competitive atmosphere where evolution is most prominent!
Evolution is not iteration. Evolution is pruning bad branches in your breadth first tree based algorithm.
Why not? People think in such a short time and amount scale such that we cannot comprehend trillions of cells spending billions of years, iterating. Even a small change can be significant at those scales.
Step right up to the grand spectacle of future-phobia, where every twist and turn of the labor market projections sends shivers down the spines of software engineers far and wide. Ah, the BLS adjusts its forecasts, and suddenly, the digital sky is falling. Decrease by 11%, you say? Why, that's practically an invitation to abandon ship before the great AI iceberg sends us all to the icy depths of unemployment, isn't it? But wait, let's sprinkle a little perspective into this doom-laden soup.
First off, the delightful Mr. Karpathy and the visionary Mr. Huang—prophets of the impending software apocalypse, preaching the gospel of "don't bother learning to code, for the machines shall inherit the Earth." It's a compelling narrative, rich with the flavor of inevitability and seasoned with a dash of existential dread. And yet, is it not but the latest chapter in the age-old saga of technological advancement and the cyclical panic that accompanies each new wave?
Ah, and then there's the heart-wrenching tale of the recently laid-off mid-level full stack engineer, pondering a premature career pivot as the shadow of obsolescence looms large. "To code, or not to code?" that is the question—a question as laden with uncertainty as it is with opportunity. But let's not get carried away on the tides of pessimism.
You see, dear worried souls, what we're witnessing is not the end of the software engineering profession but its evolution. The landscape is shifting, yes, but with every shift comes new terrain to explore, new challenges to overcome, and new niches to fill. The key to navigating this brave new world is not to flee in fear but to adapt with curiosity.
To the anxious and the uncertain, I say: fear not the AI overlords, for they are but tools in the hands of those willing to learn their language. Embrace the change, dive into the depths of this new digital domain, and you may just find that the future is not a desolate wasteland but a frontier brimming with untapped potential.
And to those pondering the path forward, the advice is timeless: continue to learn, to grow, and to adapt. The tech industry is no stranger to upheaval, and each wave of innovation has left it richer, not poorer. The DotCom Bubble, the mobile revolution, the rise of cloud computing—all were met with skepticism and fear, yet all have contributed to the vibrant, ever-changing tapestry of our digital world.
So, to the junior engineers, the college grads, the mid-level developers staring into the abyss of uncertainty, I say: hold fast. The industry will evolve, as it always has, but so too will you. The fundamentals of problem-solving, of creativity, of adaptability—these are the skills that will carry you through the storms of change. The future is not to be feared but embraced, for within it lies not just the challenge of adaptation but the promise of innovation and the endless potential for those brave enough to seize it.
What a poetic perspective! A few days ago, I was very much "to code or not to code", or rather, "get thee to a nunnery...", considering a switch to nursing to better support my family long-term. But I'll try to push forward for a while longer and adapt as best as I can. I'm not as optimistic as most folks on this page, but also trying not to waste my energy on a panic attack.
Some more junior folks, including a few of my closest friends, just won't make it. It seems like their jobs have already been replaced by a number of different factors, including AI. It's a very sad investment of time and money for them and their patient spouses, and I feel very guilty for recommending that path to them, and being unable to help them after they struggle for twelve months or more post-bootcamp, still unable to land a job.
I am just a few years ahead, and may just have a shot at the next evolution if I learn AI in a hurry...Or maybe it's also hopeless for me.
Here's to everyone giving their best shot to seizing that future, ahem (not) abyss...
Taking a lot of further inspiration from posts on this thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39656745
"Ask HN: What took you from being a good programmer to a great one?" Build everything from scratch, using zero dependencies, get below the abstractions... Ok, ok, ok. :(
Yes, there will be spam, as there always has been—let's not forget the golden age of email, where every click was a foray into the unknown. But here's where it gets interesting: as the floodgates open and the digital detritus begins to pile up, so too does the ingenuity of human and AI collaboration in crafting ever more sophisticated filters, verifiers, and sifters. We're not just talking about a simple spam filter here; we're envisioning a grand symphony of algorithmic alchemy capable of separating wheat from chaff with the precision of a diamond cutter.
but diving into the deep end of digital dismay, are we? Let's unravel this tapestry of concern with a flamboyantly convoluted rebuttal that dances around the maypole of AI evolution and internet content proliferation. Picture, if you will, a burgeoning digital universe, already teeming with a veritable smorgasbord of information, misinformation, and everything in between. Into this chaotic jamboree steps the latest parade of performers: the LLMs, with their glittering capes of algorithmic complexity, ready to churn out content with the prolificacy of a cosmic bakery on overdrive.
Now, the fear you've articulated, draped in the elegant garb of concern for our collective digital sanity, presupposes a dystopian future where the internet becomes a vast ocean of AI-generated flotsam and jetsam. But let's twirl that narrative on its head, shall we? Imagine, instead, a world where these AI entities, far from being the harbingers of informational apocalypse, become the architects of a new informational renaissance.
And let's not underestimate the serendipitous creativity that emerges from this chaotic cauldron of content. For every thousand pieces of nonsense, there might emerge an idea, a concept, a piece of art that could only have been born in such a fertile environment of unbridled creation.
As for the concern about LLMs training on, shall we say, less than stellar sources of information, consider this: evolution is not a straight line but a meandering path through the forests of failure and the mountains of success. Just as humans learn from mistakes, so too will our AI counterparts, sifting through the sediment of digital discourse to find the nuggets of truth and innovation.
Ok an internet rendered unusable by AI-generated content are not without foundation, they fail to account for the boundless capacity for adaptation and innovation that characterizes both human and artificial intelligence. So, rather than wringing our hands in despair at the prospect of navigating an ever-more cluttered digital landscape, let us roll up our sleeves and dive into the fray, armed with the knowledge that in chaos lies opportunity, in spam lies the seed of sophistication, and in the vast, uncharted territories of the internet lies the next great frontier of human achievement.
Oh, al_borland, living in a delightful bubble where you think your design choices are immune to the AI revolution. "Garbage in, garbage out"? Please. LLMs are learning to sift through the trash, making sense of vague directions to produce not just code, but coherent, innovative solutions. Your hundreds of decisions? LLMs are on track to replicate that intuition, tapping into patterns and precedents you're unaware exist. The unspoken wants and needs of your company? AI's pattern recognition is becoming uncannily perceptive trained on specific company datasets, codebases, domain knowledge, real time metrics in ways you never will be able to do.
A lot of that depends on the company and their ability to execute on these things. At my company, I’m not too worried in the near term. Thinking 10-15 years out, I still don’t know if I’m all that worried, when I look at what progress has looked like over the last 15 years.
A lot of people are wearing rose colored glasses right now when it comes to AI. It will take time to see how much of that optimism is valid and how much is misplaced. This isn’t the first technology to come along that people thought was a silver bullet to solve all the world’s problems. Over time, as the market matures, the glasses will come off and we’ll see where we end up. AI is a tool, and will be really good for some things, but won’t be the right tool for every job. There will also be various levels of autonomy giving to it, depending on the use.
It’s also worth remembering that there are a broad range of businesses out there are varying levels of technical maturity. Just because some companies figure out how to do some cool stuff with AI doesn’t mean all companies will be doing it at that same level. There are still many companies that barely have a web presence, 25-30 years after the internet went mainstream, while other companies exist solely online.
I have no doubt I’ll see professions disappear in my lifetime, while new ones are born. If I need to adapt, I’ll adapt.
Oh, holding onto your job description like a security blanket, huh? Wake up! LLMs are storming the castle, not just to play with your coding tools, but to usurp your throne of problem-solving. Your 'actual job'? About to be a footnote in the saga of AI's conquest. Dismissing LLMs is like challenging a tidal wave with a teaspoon. Adapt or become a quaint anecdote in the chronicles of tech evolution.
Honestly, thinking you can outpace LLMs with your learning curve is like believing you can outrun a tsunami on a bicycle. Your decade of tech evolution? LLMs do that before breakfast, without the coffee break. The truth is harsh—LLMs are on track to render programmers obsolete, turning your diversified skill set into a quaint relic. Face it, we're not just talking job replacement; we're heralding a new era where coding is an AI's game.
You sound more like an out of touch executive or a recently-converted-Bitcoin-scammer than someone doing real work with this stuff (and yes I saw your top-voted post — as someone who also works in games at a large AAA studio I’ll just say I look forward to the GDC talk showing the evidence).
Clearly, you have your nose stuck in the past. LLMs aren't just good; they're revolutionary, making coders look like one finger keyboard peckers. They're not struggling with maintaining systems; they can be trained on specific datasets and codebases, totally mastering them in ways no human can ever hope to do, making your traditional coding seem like manual typewriting and laughable in comparison. The idea that they can't handle specificity is also laughable. LLMs are not the future; they're the now, effortlessly bridging tech and non-tech worlds, totally replacing programmers. Anyone thinking otherwise is simply not paying attention. The writing is on the wall.
Can I ask how you’re accomplishing this? What tools and workflows are you using to have LLMs actually do this level of development in the present? Sounds like you are at the cutting edge and I’m very curious since I still hear copilot being touted as “cutting edge”. Thanks!
Answer me this: often times even my product manager doesn’t know WHAT they want. They think they know but they don’t really, once you start looking at the code, there are dozens of edge cases throughout the system. The requirements are vague. How do you expect an LLM to magically figure that out? Or more importantly, the business domain (a domain not easily trained on textbooks or crap found on the internet)?
And I don’t have my head stuck in the sand. I’ve found LLM’s great for brainstorming, implementing small functions, or updating snippets of configuration like terraform.
Yeah the writing is on the wall. I'm a senior AI programmer for an AAA games studio that you probably know (I worked on a very famous RTS game). I have reduced the code I write by about 90% since ChatGPT 4 was released. My colleagues have also reduced their coding time similiarly. This technology is going to remove all the toil and any need to hire/communicate with junior devs.
I imagine it will be the same for other seniors in the programming community. An industry where it's just seniors and LLMs within 4 years is likely, if not sooner, 2 years tbh, and if this slowly transitions to just LLMs and a small team of code reviewers on each site, that would be ideal. Programmers in my area (AI) have a lot of domain knowledge and specialization, we just use code for implementation.
So we don't care if LLMs replace coders by auto generating code. All the better for us. The people who are trying to support families ... by offering the world to write CRUD or maintaining codebases are doomed.... they are going to end up as the homeless guy on the street holding a sign saying "will code html for food"
