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The proletarianization of tech workers (doctorow.medium.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by erlend_sh to c/technology

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https://archive.ph/hMZPi

Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

Then that dream shrank to: work for a giant for a few years, quit, do a fake startup, get acqui-hired by your old employer, as a complicated way of getting a bonus and a promotion.

Then the dream shrank further: work for a tech giant for your whole life, get free kombucha and massages on Wednesdays.

And now, the dream is over. All that’s left is: work for a tech giant until they fire your ass, like those 12,000 Googlers who got fired six months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years.

We deserve better than this. We can get it.

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[–] Shadywack 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not yet, but would you agree that businesses desire the ability to automate software engineering and reduce developer headcount by demanding an AI supplemented development work flow?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure, just like businesses have always wanted "no-code" solutions to their problems to cut out the need for software engineers. We all know how that turned out. There was no threat then, and there's no threat now.

[–] AstridWipenaugh 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

AI coding is just another tool developers have at their disposal now. It will just raise the bar for expected output. I expect within a few years it will be popular to describe a process, have an AI tool spit out some intern-grade hot mess that maybe compiles, then have a junior developer fix it, and a senior developer write the custom/complex parts. If the AI is good enough, it'll be a significant time saver for it to get you more than half way to done.

It could even be tamed with a test-driven development approach. Write a bunch of good tests and have the AI generate code that passes the tests. What could possibly go wrong... lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I find it highly overrated in terms of productivity in general, particularly when writing anything remotely non-trivial/company-specific.

There's also the absolutely massive issue of licensing/IP/etc. Any company that's not full of dumbasses should recognize the massive risk and liability involved and stay the fuck away.