> Understanding the concrete problem mathematicians are upset about can help us better understand the impact of AI on our own fields,
imo, The author of this essay does not understand the concrete problem that mathematicians are upset about. There is an idea that math [1] and coding [2] are human activities whose purpose is to achieve a certain kind of insight or mental clarity of things. The simplest description of this is by Feyman [3]. AI completely short-circuits that. But that doesnt mean it is not useful. As other tools before, it is a useful tool which in my opinion needs to be embraced towards the same purpose.
“ Like mathematics, software engineers are going to have to rebuild our cultural sense of the kind of work we value.”
From the closing is the change I see going in at every job area and level.
My hunch is that this ultimately doubles back to those that excel at story telling and human coordination. As the AI systems “offload” not just production but I believe some initiation of what to build, the “why” and how to rally groups for any appreciably complex work matters more.
I also hope to see a plenty of solo shops succeeding in spaces that used to take entire teams, but (for now) remain convicted human coordination remains a key need for most endeavors.
>My hunch is that this ultimately doubles back to those that excel at story telling and human coordination. As the AI systems “offload” not just production but I believe some initiation of what to build, the “why” and how to rally groups for any appreciably complex work matters more.
The "why" behind most products is of little interest to the majority of workers. While it may be of the upmost importance (on the surface at least) for the leaders of a business, I see no reason why Bob from accounting is going to give a fuck about your company's grand vision.
This is especially true if your company is in a mundane lane like B2B SaaS. You could argue that workers at SpaceX care about the "why", but 99.99% of companies aren't SpaceX.
You are highlighting their point. You are pointing to current culture and behavior. The very first sentence that you responded to points to that culture and says it's gonna need to change, if you'd like to keep your job.
People skills imo will always trump other skills. The best ideas never live because people don't know how to sell. And knowing and being very successful at selling requires that excellent story telling and human coordination.
Football analogy; AI is the wide receiver and the human is the quarterback. Even if you're the best WR in the game you're still not producing touchdowns unless you have a decent QB.
It's super easy to smell vibe coded projects.
All of these proofs and vibe code are impossible without human work. Call me when GPT whatever writes gcc from scratch
Anastasia Berg and Jon Baskin wrote a piece in August called “On Radical Preservation,” [1] in which they use the example of the shared concept of 'merit' to warn about the dangers of an AI-filled present and future. They anecdotally compare our situation to that of the Crow people, through the testimony of Plenty Coups, who described the fall of the buffalo and the end of the practices, rituals, concepts, and way of life that his people understood as making up what it was to live an excellent life (or not).
Likewise, they point to merit (which I think we consider very much like expertise) as one such fundamental concept in our society, which is very much undermined by unchecked use of LLMs. This coming not just via "cheating," but by the way in which we so quickly are willing to claim, and ourselves believe, that we deserve praise for that which the machine has created. On a wide scale, their use will not just compete with those who may not use the machine, but will destroy even our shared idea of personal merit.
Beyond merit alone, AI might lead generally to our "own cultural values becom[ing] not just decadent or debatable but unintelligible." At the end, Berg and Baskin basically say that hope is not sufficient (hope that the old concepts will be replaced with new ones); the proper attitude is to do everything in our power to preserve them in the present.
Just like how social media has possessed many people with cultivating an outward facing image that often diverges with reality, AI posses people to portray themselves as an artist/developer/musician/etc. without having put in any of the work.
> people would know you were a skilled engineer. But now projects like that are worthless, because everyone just assumes they’re vibe-coded.
I do not really care what other people think. Build something for the purity of building it for yourself or for a purpose.
Thanks to AI, I feel like I have been writing the best code in my life. Yes, writing, not vibe-coding. I mainly just ask questions and ask for hints and clues. I do not use LLMs to do the fun parts for me.
I am currently working on a game. If and when I ever finish it, I want to be able to say that I wrote every single line by hand. Will it make me better than anyone? No, not at all. I want to do it for myself.
That's fine with me. I'd even appreciate that even more. I get one life on this miserable planet. I am going to do what I enjoy for as long as I can. Call me a blacksmith or a Luddite, I couldn't care less. One thing you can never call me is unhappy.
Good for you. But some people need others to know that they are skilled to get a job or to be part of a community. You must be one of those priveleged ones moderately far along in your career that you don't need to worry about that.
I am 100% certain it will be better quality with you writing it by hand (even with AI pointing out options) than letting the AI string together completely obtuse abstractions.
imo, The author of this essay does not understand the concrete problem that mathematicians are upset about. There is an idea that math [1] and coding [2] are human activities whose purpose is to achieve a certain kind of insight or mental clarity of things. The simplest description of this is by Feyman [3]. AI completely short-circuits that. But that doesnt mean it is not useful. As other tools before, it is a useful tool which in my opinion needs to be embraced towards the same purpose.
[1] "On proof and progress in math" https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/9404236
[2] "Programming as theory building" https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf
[3] "What I cannot create, I do not understand"
My hunch is that this ultimately doubles back to those that excel at story telling and human coordination. As the AI systems “offload” not just production but I believe some initiation of what to build, the “why” and how to rally groups for any appreciably complex work matters more.
I also hope to see a plenty of solo shops succeeding in spaces that used to take entire teams, but (for now) remain convicted human coordination remains a key need for most endeavors.
The "why" behind most products is of little interest to the majority of workers. While it may be of the upmost importance (on the surface at least) for the leaders of a business, I see no reason why Bob from accounting is going to give a fuck about your company's grand vision.
This is especially true if your company is in a mundane lane like B2B SaaS. You could argue that workers at SpaceX care about the "why", but 99.99% of companies aren't SpaceX.
People skills imo will always trump other skills. The best ideas never live because people don't know how to sell. And knowing and being very successful at selling requires that excellent story telling and human coordination.
Football analogy; AI is the wide receiver and the human is the quarterback. Even if you're the best WR in the game you're still not producing touchdowns unless you have a decent QB.
It's super easy to smell vibe coded projects.
All of these proofs and vibe code are impossible without human work. Call me when GPT whatever writes gcc from scratch
Likewise, they point to merit (which I think we consider very much like expertise) as one such fundamental concept in our society, which is very much undermined by unchecked use of LLMs. This coming not just via "cheating," but by the way in which we so quickly are willing to claim, and ourselves believe, that we deserve praise for that which the machine has created. On a wide scale, their use will not just compete with those who may not use the machine, but will destroy even our shared idea of personal merit.
Beyond merit alone, AI might lead generally to our "own cultural values becom[ing] not just decadent or debatable but unintelligible." At the end, Berg and Baskin basically say that hope is not sufficient (hope that the old concepts will be replaced with new ones); the proper attitude is to do everything in our power to preserve them in the present.
[1]: https://thepointmag.com/letter/on-radical-preservation
Just like how social media has possessed many people with cultivating an outward facing image that often diverges with reality, AI posses people to portray themselves as an artist/developer/musician/etc. without having put in any of the work.
I do not really care what other people think. Build something for the purity of building it for yourself or for a purpose.
Thanks to AI, I feel like I have been writing the best code in my life. Yes, writing, not vibe-coding. I mainly just ask questions and ask for hints and clues. I do not use LLMs to do the fun parts for me.
I am currently working on a game. If and when I ever finish it, I want to be able to say that I wrote every single line by hand. Will it make me better than anyone? No, not at all. I want to do it for myself.