"We’re heading off a cliff if we continue to put AI first and humans last." Well said Jim. So much of this also applies to the increasing reliance on generative AI in the creative industries.
How will AI give you everything for free? AI companies expect you to buy their tokens - nothing is going to be free. Also, how is AI going to the most critical work that runs civilization when it's proven to be so innaccurate and incompetant. The hype about what it can do is just lies and fraud from nefarious corporations run by nihihilstic techlords.
Maybe after the crash and dust all settles, software design and engineering skills will come back in style? Besides the decline in software quality that AI-first development entails, avoiding slop token costs or copywriter concerns may prove to be the better and more profitable overall option for skilled teams. Or maybe I'm just trying to remain hopeful in dystopia lol 🙃
This connects to a structural shift that hit this week. Anthropic and OpenAI just announced near-identical JVs with Blackstone, Goldman, TPG, and Bain to ship forward-deployed engineers into PE portfolio companies. The unit of measurement is no longer 'employee impact' or 'team impact,' it's 'how much cost structure did the model plus the embedded engineer remove.' That math eats the engineering manager role faster than it eats the engineer.
People need to be more honest with each and other and start living in the real world. In the quest for unlimited money, lots of devs/firms are completely forgetting about security first principles, data protection and data privacy. It's madness. When I read yesterday Brian Armstrong's statement that in his firm (Coinbase) people were shipping code through vibecoding I was shocked, literally. The illusion is so powerful and dangerous that some are completely detached from reality.
I think the key to understand here is that the builders of AI are expressly trying to replace human intelligence, while at the same time admitting that they do not understand human intelligence. I think we're in the frothy stage like the first dotcom bubble when the public conversation was driven by people in marketing, not in engineering. In the long run, I think AI will be more like a prosthetic that enhances human capacities than a drop-in replacement for human beings.
I do agree with you that the narrative, "We're going to replace all human labor in three years," is in sharp conflict with the reality, "We need people who have money to purchase our tokens." Those two ideas just can't exist together. And for some stupid reason, nobody is talking about it.
Jim, thoughtful piece as always. I appreciate your insistence on human first thinking.
However, the typical engineering manager (like I was) under layers of corporate hierarchy is not in a position to push back in any meaningful way. YMMV, especially if you are further up the chain.
The general disposition of upper management, in my experience, is that everyone is replaceable except themselves, and they are quick to label anyone who dissents as not a team player.
Furthermore, the way tech industry (and our economy in general) is structured these days gives incumbents almost insurmountable leverage, eliminating meaningful competition. So what do they care if the product quality goes down, as long as their stocks go up?
Upper management are rarely held accountable, even if they make all the decisions that lead to total collapse. This has been the case for decades before AI.
Seems to me it's a game where the only way to win is not to play. Let the whole stinking heap collapse and then maybe, just maybe, there'll be room for a new beginning.
Way to kill my one shred of optimism lol. I know. I know. I sometimes revert back to idealism. I can't help it. It's too depressing to give up on humanity even though that's in vogue right now.
I'm not giving up on humanity, I'm giving up on the current economic model where wealth inevitably concentrates at an accelerating rate. That has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with our culture and economic model.
This is naive. What comes after capitalism? You know UBI will not happen, right? End of all careers means you'll have to compete for scraps of manual labor or starve. That's dystopia not utopia.
"We’re heading off a cliff if we continue to put AI first and humans last." Well said Jim. So much of this also applies to the increasing reliance on generative AI in the creative industries.
You seem bitter. What is your personal experience of the creative industry?
Well yeah, that's capitalism. But it's the only system we've got.
How will AI give you everything for free? AI companies expect you to buy their tokens - nothing is going to be free. Also, how is AI going to the most critical work that runs civilization when it's proven to be so innaccurate and incompetant. The hype about what it can do is just lies and fraud from nefarious corporations run by nihihilstic techlords.
Maybe after the crash and dust all settles, software design and engineering skills will come back in style? Besides the decline in software quality that AI-first development entails, avoiding slop token costs or copywriter concerns may prove to be the better and more profitable overall option for skilled teams. Or maybe I'm just trying to remain hopeful in dystopia lol 🙃
I do think IF people come to their senses, those of us who still know how to use our own brains will become a prized commodity.
We already are.
This connects to a structural shift that hit this week. Anthropic and OpenAI just announced near-identical JVs with Blackstone, Goldman, TPG, and Bain to ship forward-deployed engineers into PE portfolio companies. The unit of measurement is no longer 'employee impact' or 'team impact,' it's 'how much cost structure did the model plus the embedded engineer remove.' That math eats the engineering manager role faster than it eats the engineer.
People need to be more honest with each and other and start living in the real world. In the quest for unlimited money, lots of devs/firms are completely forgetting about security first principles, data protection and data privacy. It's madness. When I read yesterday Brian Armstrong's statement that in his firm (Coinbase) people were shipping code through vibecoding I was shocked, literally. The illusion is so powerful and dangerous that some are completely detached from reality.
Yeah I read that too. Sheer insanity. I'm genuinely worried about how all this will end up. This is a mental health epidemic.
Very true.
https://systemshaywire.substack.com/p/the-day-ai-burned-my-brain-out
I think the key to understand here is that the builders of AI are expressly trying to replace human intelligence, while at the same time admitting that they do not understand human intelligence. I think we're in the frothy stage like the first dotcom bubble when the public conversation was driven by people in marketing, not in engineering. In the long run, I think AI will be more like a prosthetic that enhances human capacities than a drop-in replacement for human beings.
I guess we'll see.
I do agree with you that the narrative, "We're going to replace all human labor in three years," is in sharp conflict with the reality, "We need people who have money to purchase our tokens." Those two ideas just can't exist together. And for some stupid reason, nobody is talking about it.
Jim, thoughtful piece as always. I appreciate your insistence on human first thinking.
However, the typical engineering manager (like I was) under layers of corporate hierarchy is not in a position to push back in any meaningful way. YMMV, especially if you are further up the chain.
The general disposition of upper management, in my experience, is that everyone is replaceable except themselves, and they are quick to label anyone who dissents as not a team player.
Furthermore, the way tech industry (and our economy in general) is structured these days gives incumbents almost insurmountable leverage, eliminating meaningful competition. So what do they care if the product quality goes down, as long as their stocks go up?
Upper management are rarely held accountable, even if they make all the decisions that lead to total collapse. This has been the case for decades before AI.
Seems to me it's a game where the only way to win is not to play. Let the whole stinking heap collapse and then maybe, just maybe, there'll be room for a new beginning.
Way to kill my one shred of optimism lol. I know. I know. I sometimes revert back to idealism. I can't help it. It's too depressing to give up on humanity even though that's in vogue right now.
"He's dead, Jim" 🦴
I'm not giving up on humanity, I'm giving up on the current economic model where wealth inevitably concentrates at an accelerating rate. That has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with our culture and economic model.
This is naive. What comes after capitalism? You know UBI will not happen, right? End of all careers means you'll have to compete for scraps of manual labor or starve. That's dystopia not utopia.
Okay now you are espousing eugenics. You are extremely naive as well as disturbed. This conversation is over.