For an old dog like myself it feels an unjust rug pull.
I know many jobs are about giving partial access to secrets or insider knowledge etc but I simply can't see myself accepting that this is my value proposition.
No, let the pie grow. Let more people be able to do more things. Use the new capabilities to do even more. See how you can provide genuine value in the new environment. I know it isn't easy. There are many unknowns. But at least aspirationally I see that as the only positive way forward.
The same thing has happened to many jobs. 100 years ago being a photographer was a difficult skill. They must have felt a rug pull when compact cameras became mainstream and they were no longer called to take all family pictures. Surely the codex writers felt a rug pull when printing became widespread. Typesetters when people could use word processors on their PC with font settings. Prop designers and practical effects people when movies switched to vfx. Etc etc.
That's an incredibly uncharitable reading of the parent comment. At no point in history prior to maybe this year could you argue that working in software was gatekeeping, toll extracting, or rent seeking. Being a highly skilled craftsperson creating software for those who can't or don't want to is a very psychologically positive self identification. Lamenting that the industry is moving away from highly skilled craftspeople is also perfectly valid, even if you believe that it is somehow good for society, which is yet to become clear.
Yes, producing software was value. (It of course still is as of today, we are talking about what may be coming). My plead is to continue searching for ways to contribute value. Don't resign to a feeling that the only way to hold on is if you try to stop others from knowing about or being able to use the skill leveling tech. This makes one bitter and negative. Embrace it, aspire to be happy about it.
Its like getting scooped in science. In research, I always try to reframe it to be happy that science has progressed. Let me try to learn from it and pivot my research to some area where I can contribute something. Sulking about having been scooped does not lead to positive change and devalues ones own self-image.
If you think any programming task at hand one must have at least some reasonable grasp of formalism, boolean logic, predicate logic, then understanding the software developing concepts, your APIs frameworks, language constructs etc and finally the domain knowledge.Most of this goes away when changing from coding to prompting.
I was just doing some computer graphics work myself doing Signed Distance Fields and Claude just literally regurgitated code that I could just adopt (since it works) without understanding any of the math involved.
I'd say that prompting is at least two orders of magnitude easier than coding.
Digital products such as "photoshop" have had value because people need a tool like that and there's only a limited number of competition, i.e. scarcity. The scarcity exists because of the cost. I.e. the cost of creating "photoshop"creates limit for how many "photoshops" exist. When you bring down the cost you'll have more "photoshops" when you have more "photoshops" as the volume increases the value decreases. Imagine if you can just tell claude "write me photoshop", go take a dump and come back 30 mins later to a running photoshop. You wouldn't now pay 200USD for a license, now would you? You'd pay 0USD.
If you now create a tool that can (or promises it) can obliterate the costs, it means essentially anyone can produce "photoshop". And when anyone can do it it will be done over and over and at which point they're worth zero and you can't give them away.
The same thing has happened to media publishing, print media -> web, computer games etc.
Then the problem is that when your product is worth zero you can no longer make a business by creating your product, so in order to survive you must look into alternative revenue streams such as ads, data mining etc. None of which are a benefit to to the product itself.
Boy I can't wait for the equivalent of low effort high volume clickbait to take over software. Yay!
Our software industry has specialized, for decades, in "rug pulling" / changing / "disrupting" other industries on a massive scale.
I find it pretty ironic when engineers make these statements in that context.
Do you think it's fair that when the society moves underneath, the capitalistic system moves its tectonic plates it's the individual who has to bear the cost of that?
Abd let's be clear only software devs are just sucking it up. You think lawyers and doctors would allow themselves to be laid off en masse and be replaced with trainees who just prompt the computer?
Also what will happen when high wage earners start loosing their discretionary income. The whole service sector for starters will be shaken.
Just imagine some big tech company laying off 10k engineers. Making 0.3m per year. That's 3b dollars that disappear from the incomes and thus from the economy and just stays in the pockets of the capital holders.
Interestingly, the model doesn't "know" that it's ignoring you. From its perspective, it has retrieved a "meaningful" pattern—virtual parameter names that probably fit common conventions it saw during training. Your actual request simply... wasn't documented.
So? Demand the source code. Run your own AI to review the quality of the code base. The contracting company doesn't want to do it? Fine, find one that will.
