Discussion
If you follow me you might have read that the company I was working for was pushing for AI. This started last year, but the push has been stronger and stronger. My boss told me that not using this tools meant being in the short list. We were adding as much docs as to make them useful, which we didn't do for humans before. The only coworker in my subteam was all "did you ask [AI_product]" and "I don't program anymore".
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Now, two days ago, the company did a massive layoff. 10 out of 11 people in my team were "impacted" (their words); one 3 people team wiped; and at least 75% of another gone.
I have no idea what exactly led to this massive layoff. We had had two way smaller ones since last year, and the company seemed to be rebounding from COVID. As a contractor I had no view on their numbers.
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But I think one of the reasons is that they think they can replace us with AI. In some ways I hope they can, because it was a really nice company to work for, and many people I know still work there.
But in others I hope they can't, mostly as a sign that the obsession with these tools is badly founded. Maybe they can correct before they implode because the few ones at the helm are over worked, even with the help of AI.
/end
PS: Will I use these tools? I don't know. Friends tell me they're now required in interviews, and I don't see a big market for #NoAI people :((( If these things were made in some other way, I would probably use them. But their current implementation are just making our world worse.
TL;DR: I think we dug our own graves. And I'm open to work.
I used them very sparingly. One morning I used it to develop some automation, and after a couple of hours I put it aside when it mangled the code it had already written. Then since last week I have been using it as a search engine as a last resort, in parallel to questions to IRC. Unluckily IRC communities are quite diminished, so getting someone to discuss can take hours now.
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