Yup, automation has been happening since (before) the 1970s, finance since the '80s, media since the '90s, digitalization since '00s and all of it more ever since. AI currently has the least impact of any major development and will for some time. Hacker News isn't the real world.
> Yup, automation has been happening since (before) the 1970s ...
Yeah, significantly before the '70s, unless you're specifically talkin' about robotic automation. Folks been automating human labor with automated machinery of various kinds for quite a long time before that.
None of that automation thought for itself, or could undertake its own automation. The potential in all those former waves was limited by the skills of human beings, but the limit on AI eventually is only compute. These are not the same thing at all.
A lot of automation isn't what people think of as automation. Is the average supermarket automated? A bit, but not a lot. But 90% of what they are actually selling has been automated in some way. Groceries have been cooked, picked, preserved, packed, shipped or otherwise processed with the help of automation. So regardless how smart an AI becomes it doesn't provide much more value as a cooking robot. We have automated cooking for decades by processing food. But we are still limited by physics, society and need.
AI will probably make music free. But it is already almost free with cheap instruments, recording equipment and distribution. And even before music wasn't that expensive. You can argue that we lose value in not performing it ourselves. That is some impact, but not one that strictly replaces the other. You can choose to have society where you teach music and it will still provide value over AI.
I do realize that the idea is often not that we will have cooking robots, but that AI will change chemistry or biology to where food is something else. Still hard to say if or when that happens, and what impact it would actually have.
It is always the case that an expert doesn't just have to be good at things, they also have to not be bad at them. Saying no to doing things they are bad at is part of that. But it doesn't matter.
We can argue that AI can do this or that, or that it can't do this or that. But what is the alternative that is better? There often isn't one. We have already been through this repeatedly in areas such as cloud computing. Running you own servers is leaner, but then you have to acquire servers, data centers and operations. Which is hard. While cloud computing has become easy.
In another story here there are many defending that HN is simple [0]. Then it is noted that it might be getting stale [1]. Unsurprisingly as the simple nature of HN doesn't offer much over asking an LLM. There are things an LLM can't do, but HN doesn't do much of that.
For people to be better we actually need people. Who have housing, education and healthcare. And good technologies that can deliver performance, robustness and security. But HN is full of excuses why those things aren't needed, and that is something that AI can match. And it doesn't have to be that good to do it.
> HN is full of excuses why those things aren't needed, and that is something that AI can match
It's not just on HN; there's a lot of faith in the belief that eventually AI will enable enlightened individuals infinite leverage that doesn't hinge on pesky Other People. All they need to do is trust the AI, and embrace the exponentials.
Calls for the democratization of art also fall under this. Part of what develops one's artistic taste is the long march of building skills, constantly refining, and continually trying to outdo yourself. In other words: The Work. If you believe that only the output matters, then you're missing out on the journey that confers your artistic voice.
If people had felt they had sufficient leverage over their own lives, they wouldn't need to be praying to the machine gods for it.
That's a much harder problem for sure. But I don't see AI solving that.
> And how is this useful to someone who can't get into these top schools because life is happening? Also, your outlook seems very unrealistic to me.
If you can't go to school because of life, chances are you can't self-study because of life as self-studying is harder.
> This is software development we're talking about, not medicine, not mechanical engineering.
Software development in many ways has more competition than those fields that have entry level positions in more rural areas.
> To be a top tier software developer, you need access to a decent computer and good resources to learn.
No, not to be a top tier software developer.
> Add to that the excellent guidance of curricula like OSSU, TeachYourselfCS, and others like them,
Someone who want to become a software developer shouldn't prioritize studying CS.
> if you have the mind for it and a bit of discipline, your skills will be as sharp as any top school graduate's
It will be many times as hard reaching that level yourself.
> Regardless of your path, these are the real gems companies are after, and if you truly have them, you will NOT be invisible in this domain.
Little to no indication that this is true. More like companies might still hire someone they need if they pass all the recruiters and tests favouring the traditional path.
> Getting hired in software has always been about showing that you can build software.
Always has been a academic, military and business field. That is why hackers happened in the first place.
Almost every partner and the founders have an elite or close to elite education. Something only around 1% of the population have, yet they make up all of the people. That is in an untraditional firm which literally runs Hacker News.
