Even if it’s not always fun to talk about, I appreciate bringing up the topic of AI. Thank you for having the conversation and I’m sure it won’t be the last. 🙃
I just started reading If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. It gives us much more to think on in terms of thoughts on AI and Super AI, and like you said, leaders who are willing to talk about it. Highly recommend as a book to read!
On a serious AI note, I have something I do at work monthly that I would LOVE to hand over and automate. I've spent so much time trying to figure out prompts for it, I could have done the thing several months over. If my job was to work with AI, that would be one thing, but I feel like I've wasted a lot of time.
This has been my week. I have tried to write a prompt for something that seems like it should be a slam dunk for Copilot, and yet after many, many attempts, I cannot get it to work. I think I give up... at least on this one.
This was such a great episode and Beth, I feel like you shared SO MUCH wisdom in this episode. I found myself nodding along to many things you said, examples you shared, and ways you think about things. Thank you for sharing your heart and mind with us!
My public officials in WI are trying so hard to spin the SAVE act like it is no big deal and will solve all election problems. But when I check our passport data, we only have 43.1% of people with passports. That 43.1% also includes children who are not eligible to vote yet. Our driver's license is one that is not on the approved list either. The level of misinformation that our elected officials are releasing has me so upset that I've decided to start writing post cards to them. Telling them that they can't keep lying to us. I'm sure they will go unread and into the garbage but I have 2 packs of post cards collecting dust in my office drawer and it is now my mission to write to them daily until they are gone.
I consider myself an AI-never; however, it's really been thrust upon me by our evil Google overlords. And it bothers me that pre-2020 we wouldn't have called it AI. My Google Pixel phone does automatically block spam numbers (something Sarah asked for). I consider that a phone feature, not AI. (And it does it so well! I really like this feature.) And last week I had an email summary that was actually helpful. You know that thing where everybody's replying to different versions of the thread and an email conversation gets so stringy you can't follow it? That was going on with my neighborhood email list this last week. Someone saw an intruder in her yard, and others were tracking the guy. Eventually, the Google AI started posting a summary at the top of the thread: Mavis saw an intruder in her back yard, Smita posted video, and Jorge says the sheriff apprehended him. It gave me a good idea of which parts of the conversation were important to look at. Of course, they _could_ just improve the AI of showing an email thread, something IMO Gmail messed up to begin with, but I'll take it.
I don’t understand why Republicans are willing to risk disenfranchising their own voters in order to pass this. Surely any gain in losing a few votes from non-citizens would be more than counterbalanced by losing votes from people who want to vote Republican but can’t or don’t surmount these barriers in order to vote.
I tried explaining this to my BIL, that is his current wife, mother, and other SIL won't be eligible to vote if this passes since 2 of the 3 ladies have been married more than once, none of them have passports or the REAL ID (which is not eligible in our state). He said I was over reacting and getting my news from stupid sources. He claimed since they voted in the past they would be exempt from the new rules if passed. I can't make up how brainwashed they are.
I don't know anyone who went to get their Real ID who didn't have to leave and come back another time because something they brought as proof that wasn't quite right, including myself.
As for AI....I have so many thoughts.
I love history and get more pleasure out of reading or listening to some sweeping narrative, historical tome that digs deep into some random topic over fiction. Two recent books I've listened to are Sapiens (History of humankind) by Yuval Noah Harari and Worn (history of fabric and clothing) by Sofi Thanhauser. I like it because it provides some solace because it reminds me that "we've been here before" but it also makes me makes me think about how can we avoid the same mistakes as history...and that's where I tend to worry.
I want to like AI. I have found some great uses for it that make my job easier but doesn't diminish my creativity. It's a great tool and I only want it to be a great tool. I don't want it to be human. Throughout history every major technological advance from fire to AI has caused disruption and had negative repercussions. But rarely has it been the industries that has said "hey, this could be harmful" or "hey, how do we make sure our workers aren't abused or harmed" In Worn, I'm working my way through the synthetics section and it was going through the invention of Rayon. The chemicals used to produce it were so poisonous that it caused psychosis, organ failure, impotence, and all kinds of other health issues. But when workers started going into sanitoriums in large number (one company even had a sanitorium at the factory!), it wasn't the companies putting on the brakes and trying to figure out what was going on. It took union strikes and mass uprisings of the workers to bring attention to it. A major impetus for the creation of "ready to wear" clothing were soldiers and slaves... How many of our tech advances are really a product of wanting to be better at war?!?! I just don't trust our tech broligarchs to be looking out for us. They never have and I'm not hopeful that they will now.
A second part of the tech/AI conversation I HATE is when people say we will have soooooooo much leisure time. NEVER IN ALL OF HISTORY HAS TECH MADE US WORK LESS! (unless you own the company). We just squeeze more work in to fill up whatever quota for productivity we have imposed upon us. I started using an AI tool to write alt text for all the images I might put in a large printed document. It's awesome, saves me a ton of time. But do I just go home when that task is done or take a longer lunch? No, I can just keep working and cross more things off my to do list (actually I do take a longer lunch because I deserve it for getting done so quickly..but according to HR, I shouldn't.). I started my graphic design career before desktop computers made their way into the agencies. I drew logos by hand with pens, french curves, and rulers. Typesetters would take the copy and make sure it fit in the font and measurements we needed for our ad or brochure. I would paste up boards that were sent to the printer for photo preparation and film separations. I can now do all those jobs on my Mac. That meant that all those people I worked with lost their jobs. That also meant that I had to learn theirs. And again, if we want new tech to result in more leisure time and a better life, it's not going to be the companies that will take that initiative. It will take the workers demanding it. And that process is usually painful, and often violent. Historically it seems like it's always the workers themselves who end up being the ones who fight and create change. And that's the lesson from history I don't think we ever learn...maybe the companies and governments could take some of that work on before the workers have to demand it out of desperation.
And I HATE what AI is doing to the writers, visual artists, musicians....it's theft, pure and simple.
What great thoughts. You are so correct! We are going to have to demand the leisure time. I read Sapiens a few years ago. The thing about that book that I really loved was his theory that agriculture actually is NOT an improvement over hunter/gathering. It's just that intentionally growing plants seemed like a good idea at the time, and we went so long and hard at the agriculture that there was no way to turn back. That blew my mind.
I’ve been reminded of this a lot lately in general but this episode especially made me think about an NPR episode from 2015 where they aired a short piece of fiction about (and titled) “The Last Job”.
I’ve thought about it for the past 10 years, even before the AI explosion. About people and how we want to spend our time and will/could in a future, such as is portrayed in the piece, and most importantly, the messy middle of what happens to jobs and lives as our society and structure struggles to adapt/overhaul.
I really don’t think Democratic messaging should concede the validity of the SAVE act in any way. Dems need to clearly communicate, “This isn’t about preventing noncitizens from voting. It’s about preventing citizens from voting.” Then they get into the details of how the SAVE act hurts everyone (as you all explained) and also negatively impacts minorities, women, rural voters, etc., even more.
Today, my county posted that the passport office will have extended hours during Spring Break. And it made me wonder if they've had an influx of passport appointments and what could possibly have caused that 👀👀🤔🤔🤔
To the AI of it all - I have a Captain who is a very caring and curious person....and also he drives a Cyber Truck and listens to too many finance bro podcasts. Last week he was telling us that semi-trucks will soon be driverless and that "they" are saying not to invest in retirement because we are headed to a cashless society where no one needs a job - because robots will be doing everything. And part of me is like, "Sir, you're a firefighter/Paramedic. There is a long list of things that robots and AI cannot take from us." But the other part of me fully understands that this is why people are willing to be convinced that unlimited AI and robots are just fine. People who should have gone to therapy instead of having a podcast are writing checks about the future that they cannot cash, and people that should go to therapy instead of listening to podcasts are lapping it up. (But also, it was really jaring to hear a very not leftist be excited about a cashless society 😂😂)
You're the second person I have heard the don't save for retirement because robots theory. I don't understand this theory. How do robots take away the need for money? I mean, it's not your theory that you believe, but I don't know if your conversation go that far.
I did not ask, I was working too hard to keep my face organized in a way that didn't express the broad range of emotions that I was feeling 😂 But it makes absolutely no sense at all.
Great episode Pantsuit Politics team, but I have to respectfully disagree with Sarah about the influence of the phases of the moon on behavior. I work in the criminal justice/mental health space and our numbers show that arrests and mental health detentions really do go up when there’s a full moon. I have no other explanation than to say that the full moon (and heat) lead folks to make some very poor decisions!
An observation I’ve had about voter ID for some time…
As anyone who has Global Entry can attest, the government can quickly verify identity through biometric scans. When returning from a trip from outside of the country, you literally stand in front of a kiosk. It takes your picture, verifies it with the stored image, and lets you into the country. In seconds. It doesn’t even ask for your passport.
If Immigration and Border Control can vet someone instantaneously for the purpose of admitting them into our borders, why can’t a similar system be implemented for purposes of matching a face with a name on a voter roll?
Amazon has done something similar using the outline of your right hand. You’re matched to the database, identified as Amazon Prime, given any discounts that status affords, and it’s charged to your preferred payment method.
There are privacy concerns … but on the other hand, how much simpler can it get? You register to vote, they take your biometrics, and you just show up to vote.
If voter fraud is truly the issue, this would solve it.
Norma, my point is that the Trump Administration and the Republican Party are claiming that voter fraud is rampant and that people ought to be required to show proof of identity in order to cast their ballot at the polls. Their argument is disingenuous because the issue is so easily solved — using biometrics.
Two thoughts:
(1) How is requiring a prospective voter to present their Real ID any less a "mark of the beast" than scanning a voter's face, eyes, or palm?
(2) Why would anyone allow the existence of a single phrase found in a highly symbolic first century document to determine public policy today. BTW, most serious biblical scholars do not believe that Revelation has anything having to do with the 21st century or predicting the "end of the world." It was addressed to persecuted first century believers and the crises they faced. The antichrist was probably Nero.
But again, we're talking public policy, not biblical exegesis. How does that verse speak to the erroneous claim that we have massive voter fraud in this country?
I was raised to take the Bible and prayer very literally (fundamentalist Christianity). As a result, no one in our community believed they had any agency. I’ve seen my mother pray for and credit God for good parking spaces. If it happened, God must’ve intended it. If it didn’t, God said no. Those were the only two explanations for all events, large and small. We were discouraged from pursuing anything too intensely because we wouldn’t want to accidentally “thwart the will of God.” So crazy that the will of God was always for men to be in charge and women to smile while submitting!
All this to say, I am as far from woo-woo now as one can get. I have an allergic reaction to abdicating my intellect and agency. I have an allergic reaction to praying about problems. But I still possess a deep sense of wonder, and I loved hearing you both discuss why spirituality, mysticism, and religion are enduring and intriguing. I also just read Atmosphere and it moved me, too! I appreciated that Atmosphere cracked a door to thinking about/appreciating things that are bigger than us without being prescriptive. That’s also what I appreciated about your discussion here.🩷
Superb episode. Thanks for talking about the AI article; somehow I hadn’t heard about it. I’m an associate at a law firm. I’m very nervous about AI’s implications. I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve pivoted before, and if my career path looks very different than I imagined, I will still be okay.
Real talk: what about the knowledge workers’ federal student loans? If the population most affected by AI is SOL, will we finally get some relief on loans? The Trump Dept of Ed has been merciless to borrowers, and the BBB twisted the knife deeper.
I'm a software engineer, building sass for the legal system, and I have to say, Claude could not build our software. Claude is equivalent in my mind to an entry level engineer. It can write basic functions, it can process a few files in context of each other, but it frequently makes basic mistakes. It's about 50/50 whether using it actually helps me or just pisses me off enough that I end up doing it myself. I find myself using it less and less over time. In fact, there's already a healthy culture of making fun of engineers who use AI to do their job for them (vibe coders). A good example is Microsoft getting rid of a bunch of engineers, and all the vulnerabilities that have popped up recently in windows 11. There's a direct link there.
I'm not personally scared for my job at the moment, and no one else I know is either, but we are all senior or above. I AM worried about entry level jobs disappearing and I've already seen it happen. Even before AI, a lot of companies were unwilling to hire entry or junior level because it takes resources to train those people, but doing so is so important for the health of the industry. I worry about us getting you a point where the senior and above people are aging out and there's no one to replace them and keep software from just becoming slop.
I appreciate hearing from a software engineer that Claude can’t build software to the same degree of quality that an experienced human can. That has been my impression (as a physicist who knows just enough about software engineering to be dangerous) but whenever I read people talking about how something like Claude is doing their job better than they could, I pause for a moment and wonder if in my animosity towards AI, I have missed something. It sounds like I haven’t.
Even if it’s not always fun to talk about, I appreciate bringing up the topic of AI. Thank you for having the conversation and I’m sure it won’t be the last. 🙃
I just started reading If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. It gives us much more to think on in terms of thoughts on AI and Super AI, and like you said, leaders who are willing to talk about it. Highly recommend as a book to read!
On a serious AI note, I have something I do at work monthly that I would LOVE to hand over and automate. I've spent so much time trying to figure out prompts for it, I could have done the thing several months over. If my job was to work with AI, that would be one thing, but I feel like I've wasted a lot of time.
This has been my week. I have tried to write a prompt for something that seems like it should be a slam dunk for Copilot, and yet after many, many attempts, I cannot get it to work. I think I give up... at least on this one.
I'm totally down with AI taking over all the jobs if everything I need to enjoy life is free.
This was such a great episode and Beth, I feel like you shared SO MUCH wisdom in this episode. I found myself nodding along to many things you said, examples you shared, and ways you think about things. Thank you for sharing your heart and mind with us!
My public officials in WI are trying so hard to spin the SAVE act like it is no big deal and will solve all election problems. But when I check our passport data, we only have 43.1% of people with passports. That 43.1% also includes children who are not eligible to vote yet. Our driver's license is one that is not on the approved list either. The level of misinformation that our elected officials are releasing has me so upset that I've decided to start writing post cards to them. Telling them that they can't keep lying to us. I'm sure they will go unread and into the garbage but I have 2 packs of post cards collecting dust in my office drawer and it is now my mission to write to them daily until they are gone.
I consider myself an AI-never; however, it's really been thrust upon me by our evil Google overlords. And it bothers me that pre-2020 we wouldn't have called it AI. My Google Pixel phone does automatically block spam numbers (something Sarah asked for). I consider that a phone feature, not AI. (And it does it so well! I really like this feature.) And last week I had an email summary that was actually helpful. You know that thing where everybody's replying to different versions of the thread and an email conversation gets so stringy you can't follow it? That was going on with my neighborhood email list this last week. Someone saw an intruder in her yard, and others were tracking the guy. Eventually, the Google AI started posting a summary at the top of the thread: Mavis saw an intruder in her back yard, Smita posted video, and Jorge says the sheriff apprehended him. It gave me a good idea of which parts of the conversation were important to look at. Of course, they _could_ just improve the AI of showing an email thread, something IMO Gmail messed up to begin with, but I'll take it.
I don’t understand why Republicans are willing to risk disenfranchising their own voters in order to pass this. Surely any gain in losing a few votes from non-citizens would be more than counterbalanced by losing votes from people who want to vote Republican but can’t or don’t surmount these barriers in order to vote.
I tried explaining this to my BIL, that is his current wife, mother, and other SIL won't be eligible to vote if this passes since 2 of the 3 ladies have been married more than once, none of them have passports or the REAL ID (which is not eligible in our state). He said I was over reacting and getting my news from stupid sources. He claimed since they voted in the past they would be exempt from the new rules if passed. I can't make up how brainwashed they are.
They are idiots! I swear. So short sighted.
I don't know anyone who went to get their Real ID who didn't have to leave and come back another time because something they brought as proof that wasn't quite right, including myself.
As for AI....I have so many thoughts.
I love history and get more pleasure out of reading or listening to some sweeping narrative, historical tome that digs deep into some random topic over fiction. Two recent books I've listened to are Sapiens (History of humankind) by Yuval Noah Harari and Worn (history of fabric and clothing) by Sofi Thanhauser. I like it because it provides some solace because it reminds me that "we've been here before" but it also makes me makes me think about how can we avoid the same mistakes as history...and that's where I tend to worry.
I want to like AI. I have found some great uses for it that make my job easier but doesn't diminish my creativity. It's a great tool and I only want it to be a great tool. I don't want it to be human. Throughout history every major technological advance from fire to AI has caused disruption and had negative repercussions. But rarely has it been the industries that has said "hey, this could be harmful" or "hey, how do we make sure our workers aren't abused or harmed" In Worn, I'm working my way through the synthetics section and it was going through the invention of Rayon. The chemicals used to produce it were so poisonous that it caused psychosis, organ failure, impotence, and all kinds of other health issues. But when workers started going into sanitoriums in large number (one company even had a sanitorium at the factory!), it wasn't the companies putting on the brakes and trying to figure out what was going on. It took union strikes and mass uprisings of the workers to bring attention to it. A major impetus for the creation of "ready to wear" clothing were soldiers and slaves... How many of our tech advances are really a product of wanting to be better at war?!?! I just don't trust our tech broligarchs to be looking out for us. They never have and I'm not hopeful that they will now.
A second part of the tech/AI conversation I HATE is when people say we will have soooooooo much leisure time. NEVER IN ALL OF HISTORY HAS TECH MADE US WORK LESS! (unless you own the company). We just squeeze more work in to fill up whatever quota for productivity we have imposed upon us. I started using an AI tool to write alt text for all the images I might put in a large printed document. It's awesome, saves me a ton of time. But do I just go home when that task is done or take a longer lunch? No, I can just keep working and cross more things off my to do list (actually I do take a longer lunch because I deserve it for getting done so quickly..but according to HR, I shouldn't.). I started my graphic design career before desktop computers made their way into the agencies. I drew logos by hand with pens, french curves, and rulers. Typesetters would take the copy and make sure it fit in the font and measurements we needed for our ad or brochure. I would paste up boards that were sent to the printer for photo preparation and film separations. I can now do all those jobs on my Mac. That meant that all those people I worked with lost their jobs. That also meant that I had to learn theirs. And again, if we want new tech to result in more leisure time and a better life, it's not going to be the companies that will take that initiative. It will take the workers demanding it. And that process is usually painful, and often violent. Historically it seems like it's always the workers themselves who end up being the ones who fight and create change. And that's the lesson from history I don't think we ever learn...maybe the companies and governments could take some of that work on before the workers have to demand it out of desperation.
And I HATE what AI is doing to the writers, visual artists, musicians....it's theft, pure and simple.
What great thoughts. You are so correct! We are going to have to demand the leisure time. I read Sapiens a few years ago. The thing about that book that I really loved was his theory that agriculture actually is NOT an improvement over hunter/gathering. It's just that intentionally growing plants seemed like a good idea at the time, and we went so long and hard at the agriculture that there was no way to turn back. That blew my mind.
Great episode, per usual!
I’ve been reminded of this a lot lately in general but this episode especially made me think about an NPR episode from 2015 where they aired a short piece of fiction about (and titled) “The Last Job”.
I’ve thought about it for the past 10 years, even before the AI explosion. About people and how we want to spend our time and will/could in a future, such as is portrayed in the piece, and most importantly, the messy middle of what happens to jobs and lives as our society and structure struggles to adapt/overhaul.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/20/408292388/episode-625-the-last-job
I really don’t think Democratic messaging should concede the validity of the SAVE act in any way. Dems need to clearly communicate, “This isn’t about preventing noncitizens from voting. It’s about preventing citizens from voting.” Then they get into the details of how the SAVE act hurts everyone (as you all explained) and also negatively impacts minorities, women, rural voters, etc., even more.
Today, my county posted that the passport office will have extended hours during Spring Break. And it made me wonder if they've had an influx of passport appointments and what could possibly have caused that 👀👀🤔🤔🤔
To the AI of it all - I have a Captain who is a very caring and curious person....and also he drives a Cyber Truck and listens to too many finance bro podcasts. Last week he was telling us that semi-trucks will soon be driverless and that "they" are saying not to invest in retirement because we are headed to a cashless society where no one needs a job - because robots will be doing everything. And part of me is like, "Sir, you're a firefighter/Paramedic. There is a long list of things that robots and AI cannot take from us." But the other part of me fully understands that this is why people are willing to be convinced that unlimited AI and robots are just fine. People who should have gone to therapy instead of having a podcast are writing checks about the future that they cannot cash, and people that should go to therapy instead of listening to podcasts are lapping it up. (But also, it was really jaring to hear a very not leftist be excited about a cashless society 😂😂)
You're the second person I have heard the don't save for retirement because robots theory. I don't understand this theory. How do robots take away the need for money? I mean, it's not your theory that you believe, but I don't know if your conversation go that far.
I did not ask, I was working too hard to keep my face organized in a way that didn't express the broad range of emotions that I was feeling 😂 But it makes absolutely no sense at all.
Great episode Pantsuit Politics team, but I have to respectfully disagree with Sarah about the influence of the phases of the moon on behavior. I work in the criminal justice/mental health space and our numbers show that arrests and mental health detentions really do go up when there’s a full moon. I have no other explanation than to say that the full moon (and heat) lead folks to make some very poor decisions!
I work in a public school district... we can tell. Often I'll see a full moon and say, "well that explains a lot."
Agree - I’m retired from our local PD. Absolutely knew things would be popping. Our supervisors staffed graveyard differently for those nights.
An observation I’ve had about voter ID for some time…
As anyone who has Global Entry can attest, the government can quickly verify identity through biometric scans. When returning from a trip from outside of the country, you literally stand in front of a kiosk. It takes your picture, verifies it with the stored image, and lets you into the country. In seconds. It doesn’t even ask for your passport.
If Immigration and Border Control can vet someone instantaneously for the purpose of admitting them into our borders, why can’t a similar system be implemented for purposes of matching a face with a name on a voter roll?
Amazon has done something similar using the outline of your right hand. You’re matched to the database, identified as Amazon Prime, given any discounts that status affords, and it’s charged to your preferred payment method.
There are privacy concerns … but on the other hand, how much simpler can it get? You register to vote, they take your biometrics, and you just show up to vote.
If voter fraud is truly the issue, this would solve it.
mark of the beast, yo
Norma, my point is that the Trump Administration and the Republican Party are claiming that voter fraud is rampant and that people ought to be required to show proof of identity in order to cast their ballot at the polls. Their argument is disingenuous because the issue is so easily solved — using biometrics.
Two thoughts:
(1) How is requiring a prospective voter to present their Real ID any less a "mark of the beast" than scanning a voter's face, eyes, or palm?
(2) Why would anyone allow the existence of a single phrase found in a highly symbolic first century document to determine public policy today. BTW, most serious biblical scholars do not believe that Revelation has anything having to do with the 21st century or predicting the "end of the world." It was addressed to persecuted first century believers and the crises they faced. The antichrist was probably Nero.
But again, we're talking public policy, not biblical exegesis. How does that verse speak to the erroneous claim that we have massive voter fraud in this country?
1) I don't care, but unleash palm scanning on the American Evangelical South and see what happens.
2) Because it is. See above.
You’re undoubtedly right about that!
Re: the woo-woo
I was raised to take the Bible and prayer very literally (fundamentalist Christianity). As a result, no one in our community believed they had any agency. I’ve seen my mother pray for and credit God for good parking spaces. If it happened, God must’ve intended it. If it didn’t, God said no. Those were the only two explanations for all events, large and small. We were discouraged from pursuing anything too intensely because we wouldn’t want to accidentally “thwart the will of God.” So crazy that the will of God was always for men to be in charge and women to smile while submitting!
All this to say, I am as far from woo-woo now as one can get. I have an allergic reaction to abdicating my intellect and agency. I have an allergic reaction to praying about problems. But I still possess a deep sense of wonder, and I loved hearing you both discuss why spirituality, mysticism, and religion are enduring and intriguing. I also just read Atmosphere and it moved me, too! I appreciated that Atmosphere cracked a door to thinking about/appreciating things that are bigger than us without being prescriptive. That’s also what I appreciated about your discussion here.🩷
I love talking to "will of God" quiverfull people. And by "talk" I mean point out the circular argument about God blessing people with children.
Superb episode. Thanks for talking about the AI article; somehow I hadn’t heard about it. I’m an associate at a law firm. I’m very nervous about AI’s implications. I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve pivoted before, and if my career path looks very different than I imagined, I will still be okay.
Real talk: what about the knowledge workers’ federal student loans? If the population most affected by AI is SOL, will we finally get some relief on loans? The Trump Dept of Ed has been merciless to borrowers, and the BBB twisted the knife deeper.
I'm a software engineer, building sass for the legal system, and I have to say, Claude could not build our software. Claude is equivalent in my mind to an entry level engineer. It can write basic functions, it can process a few files in context of each other, but it frequently makes basic mistakes. It's about 50/50 whether using it actually helps me or just pisses me off enough that I end up doing it myself. I find myself using it less and less over time. In fact, there's already a healthy culture of making fun of engineers who use AI to do their job for them (vibe coders). A good example is Microsoft getting rid of a bunch of engineers, and all the vulnerabilities that have popped up recently in windows 11. There's a direct link there.
I'm not personally scared for my job at the moment, and no one else I know is either, but we are all senior or above. I AM worried about entry level jobs disappearing and I've already seen it happen. Even before AI, a lot of companies were unwilling to hire entry or junior level because it takes resources to train those people, but doing so is so important for the health of the industry. I worry about us getting you a point where the senior and above people are aging out and there's no one to replace them and keep software from just becoming slop.
I appreciate hearing from a software engineer that Claude can’t build software to the same degree of quality that an experienced human can. That has been my impression (as a physicist who knows just enough about software engineering to be dangerous) but whenever I read people talking about how something like Claude is doing their job better than they could, I pause for a moment and wonder if in my animosity towards AI, I have missed something. It sounds like I haven’t.