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0 pointsspaceman_20202y ago0 comments

Once the context window becomes large enough to swallow up the codebase of a small-mid sized company, what do all those IT workers that perform below the 50th percentile in coding tests even do?

HN has a blind spot about this because a lot of people here are in the top %ile of programmers. But the bottom 50th percentile are already being outperformed by GPT-4. Org structures and even GPT-4 availability hasn't caught up, but I can't see any situation where these workers aren't replaced en masse by AI, especially if the AI is 10% of the cost and doesn't come with the "baggage" of dealing with humans.

I don't think our society is prepared.

0 comments

dragonwriter2y ago

> Once the context window becomes large enough to swallow up the codebase of a small-mid sized company, what do all those IT workers that perform below the 50th percentile in coding tests even do?

There's a whole lot of work in tech (even specifically work "done by software developers") that isn't "banging out code to already completed specs".

TillE2y ago

Yeah I think a lot of experienced developers are so immersed in software development that they forget how complex the process is, and how much knowledge they have to even know how to ask the right questions.

I mean, I thought that website frontend development would have long since been swallowed up by off-the-shelf WYSIWYG tools, that's how it seemed to be going in the late 90s. But the opposite has happened, there have never been more developers working on weird custom stuff.

xdennis2y ago

You say that like it's not something that can also be automated.

josho2y ago

If you make it cheaper then people will do more of it.

Look at how much more graphic design is starting to happen now that you can create an image in a few minutes.

So it means we’ll get more development projects because they’ll be cheaper.

And yes I do realize at some point we’ll still have a mass of unemployed skilled white collar workers like devs.

beepbooptheory2y ago

What specific test do I take to know my percentile?

sdenton42y ago

Just roll a d100; it will be about as useful...

If you roll over a 75, roll an additional d10 to find out your multiplier score (as in, a 10x programmer).

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