We can't all run a YouTube channel for the programming equivalent of Primitive Technology, fun though that would be. 99.99% of us will have to adapt to AI being a coworker, who will probably eventually replace us.
Right now we're still OK because the AI isn't good enough; when it gets good enough, doing things manually is as economically sensible as making your own iron by gathering a few times your mass in wood, burning some of in a sealed clay dome to turn it into charcoal, digging up some more clay to make a porous pot and a kiln to fire it in, filling it with iron rich bacterial scum from a creek, letting the water drain, building a furnace, preheating it with the rest of the wood, then smelting the bacterial ore with the charcoal, to yield about 7 grams or iron.
Nice analogy! I saw an estimate recently on the cost of programming and they predicted that automated coding will cost 10,000 times less than human coders. It was all back of the envelope and questionable but still it was food for thought. Will we be 10,000 times more productive or will we be out of work? I think a lot of people will be out of work.
> Will we be 10,000 times more productive or will we be out of work? I think a lot of people will be out of work.
It can be both. Automation of farming means we've gone from a constant risk of starvation to an epidemic of obesity, while simultaneously reducing the percentage of the workforce in agriculture.
The people using AI to write code aren't necessarily former professional programmers, for the same reasons people using AI to make pictures aren't necessarily former professional artists, and those using aim bots aren't necessarily former professional snipers or olympic shooters.
A manager can prompt a chatbot to write a thing instead of prompting me to write the same thing — for the moment, what (I hope) keeps me employable is that the the chatbot is "only" at the level of getting good grades rather than n-years professional experience.
I have no expectation for any specific timeline for that to change. Perhaps there are enough incentives it will never get trained to that level, but also perhaps it was already trained 4 months back and the improvement to capabilities are what caused the OpenAI drama.
I mean, if we had something that capable, I have zero idea why you think your manager is going to be in a safer position to you? That seems ridiculous.
You could easily flip it around, ask the bot to manage you better than your manager and make the best use of your time, or something like this?
Right now we're still OK because the AI isn't good enough; when it gets good enough, doing things manually is as economically sensible as making your own iron by gathering a few times your mass in wood, burning some of in a sealed clay dome to turn it into charcoal, digging up some more clay to make a porous pot and a kiln to fire it in, filling it with iron rich bacterial scum from a creek, letting the water drain, building a furnace, preheating it with the rest of the wood, then smelting the bacterial ore with the charcoal, to yield about 7 grams or iron.