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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a Senior Python Developer. I cannot speak for anyone but myself. In my case and I repeat my case (meaning my experience) GitHub copilot has been spectacular. My productivity has increased significantly. I know everyone is asking for specifics. So let me give you specifics. I wrote code mostly functional style. I can write copilot to generate for me in this style. We have had a vacant position for 12 months. And we don't need to fill it because the person in that post pretty much does the same thing I do.

Does it mean AI is going to replace me? Maybe. But the question really is whether I should waste my time worrying about whether  AI will take over my job. I am just worried about learning whatever tools at my disposal.

I am just confused why people are pushing back so forcebly over something they have ZERO influence over. The amount of money being spent on AI is massive. Your congresspeople cannot stop it. You cannot stop it.

Everytime someone says something about AI someone jumps in and say I have used and it was useless. Therefore because it was useless for you last week it will be useless a year from now okay great lol.

Or every shortcomings of AI is so magnified and become subject of mockery

Hey you make decisions for yourself. If you think you are safe today and 10 years from now great for you. [/quote]

And to your point, AI is doing stuff for YOU a tech bro.  But to the people you talk to who aren’t in tech, AI isn’t doing anything for them.  AI is being built for the tech bros of which you are one.  The systems the rest of us use are complete crap.  Older than the hills technology. (Not really, but you understand the meaning).  The fact that portals at the doctors offices are horrible, the computers at the hospitals require a ton of wait time teachers have awful systems to record grading. All of those things would be a better use of money for more of us.  A robot to clean dishes would be awesome.  But that isn’t what tech is doing, tech is building for tech to keep money in the higher levels of tech.

Most of us are fighting it because we see exactly zero of this. It isn’t improving our lives and the more you all sap money to make things easier for you, the less money there will be for the rest of us who are out doing things to make society run. [/quote]

I deal with people as my job.  People who need a helping hand, are dealing with hard situations, or could use a caring conversation.  I've been tinkering with AI for improving my writing, since that is how I thought it could help me with my job.  I'm not impressed.  In fact, I wrote a paragraph, and someone gave me "feedback".  I thought it was super wordy and more confusing than what I wrote.  I had a hunch, so I took my original paragraph and ran it through our org's AI.  Yup, sure enough, it spit out the "feedback" verbatim.  I think I'm going to tinker next with spreadsheets, not sure how yet.  But some people are having a hard time understanding that for many fields, AI just isn't a game changer.  Maybe it will be in the future, but now, it just annoys me.[/quote]

AI is actually really, really good for mastering all kinds of cool excel features.  Excel is extremely powerful but lots of its features are not intuitive and require multiple steps or even VBA code, which an LLM can walk you through and troubleshoot step by step, and quickly. This is the best thing I have found it does at work and it’s quite valuable.[/quote]

It doesn’t even have to be that technical.  Microsoft stock would pop if they released an ad that was simply someone talking to a computer giving it instructions for what they wanted Office to do.  “Hey Excel, import this file, find all overdue invoices, export the information to Outlook, and craft an email to each customer.  Track responses and update the spreadsheet.”

Nothing about that is difficult, but that is what people understand.  Not replacing vibe coding.

[/quote]

PP who wants to tinker with spreadsheets.

Yes, you get me completely.  Those types of tasks are a time suck.  Not rocket science to complete but necessary. I imagine how much more time I could spend on improving mission delivery and being face to face with people if AI could do it for me.  And no, it isn't replacing a human, it's reducing a human's unrealistic workload deemed realistic by another human.  [/quote]

While that sounds great, before you get too optimistic, I would remind you that your workload will still be determined by the same unrealistic human.

My father was an accountant at a large bank in the 70s.  While computers existed, the were far less powerful and more difficult to use, so staffing relied mostly on human efficiency.  While my father was there, they cut staffing, so my father worked harder to make sure the deadlines were met.  Since the same work was still completed with less personnel costs, management decided it was a great idea - in fact, they could probably save more with additional cuts, which they also made, multiple times. My dad, who felt as a professional he was obligated to complete the task kept working longer and harder.  I saw little of him, because he worked so late, and every month there were rush days where he might just stay at the office.

My mother, finally pushed him to leaving his accounting position to become a postal employee, where she felt as an hourly worker, he’d at least be compensated for overtime.  While he always missed accounting, he agreed that the bank had been taking advantage of him.

Your management doesn’t care that your job is easier or that your schedule is more flexible.  Their only goal is to maximize profits by increasing productivity and decreasing costs.  Once they realize that the department can meet the production goals with less labor, there is a good chance that your department will shrink, either through attrition or by a worker being fired and their workload being distributed to you and your colleagues.  Hopefully they won’t decide you are the extraneous worker whose workload can be reassigned to others to improve their efficiency ratings.[/quote]

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