My man Hendrik over on Bluesky:
How can we reach people like this and show them that their understanding of AI coding is fundamentally wrong, and that the reason they’re not finding a job is not that AI has killed the job market, but that they’re demonstrating a profound unwillingness to adapt to a changing technology landscape?
“It’s not like the job market was that much better before AI infested every single corner of the market, but it supercharged all of the worst aspects of everything. I’ve seen people supposedly smarter than I advocate for just giving in, conceding to AI coding as it’s the future. But doing so means tossing out my friends who make art or the people who work their asses off to properly test and review code or the writers pouring all of their energy into even mundane dialogue. It means throwing out my dignity as a software engineer, as someone that truly gives a shit about security and code.”
I answered on Bluesky but I feel like re-iterating it here, too.
To me, the framing those folks use is all wrong. At least in our craft (software development), you’ll have to understand AI as a tool to do your job, not as a means to an end.
But that requires curiosity and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone, not just once but repeatedly, not least because the field is evolving at an insanely fast clip. “I played around with ChatGPT once for half an hour, about 2 years ago, it was crap” doesn’t cut it anymore. Because your knowledge is outdated by ~2 years, friend.
Me, personally? I love watching LLMs understand my intent and code, writing new functionality, helping me brainstorm, spitball, iterate, develop. And truth be told: my apps are much better for it. More meaningful tests, less overlooked edge cases, greater stability. It’s ace! But then again, I started programming when I was 12, and work in this field in a professional fashion for ~30 years by now. That experience helps, it helps a lot. I don’t just lean back and let ‘er rip, I understand my job and the job of my tools. Those are quite different!
But back to the framing: CEOs telling everyone that AI will totally fuck us over but it’ll be great and desirable, that doesn’t help either. Theirs is often a zero-sum framing, and frankly, it’s shit.
I get why folks are against that. That framing plays hard into existing fears (job loss, loss of status, etc. — not unfounded), and that wave of fear and rejection can be another thing to hide behind for people who are unwilling to adapt, out of fear, or uncertainty, or sheer laziness of mind.
So, I think we will be unable to reach some folks because they simply do not want to be reached. For some, it’s easier to just conflate any and all AI use, condemn it flat-out, and frame it as an act of solidarity with creators. For some, it’s a willful rejection of nuance, I think.
On the risk of repeating myself: it’s exhausting, all of it. All the while agentic development continues to blow my mind, in a very good way.
