The cost of producing code has dropped to almost zero, but the cost of knowing whether that code is actually useful hasn't.
I think the same is true for images, videos, and music. The cost of producing content is approaching zero, but taste, originality, judgment, and intent still matter.
In a world where anyone can create almost anything, having good taste could become increasingly important.
This can’t go on, so it won’t. The 20s will be looked back at as a really awful time except for the ultra rich. Wait and watch and give actual people a chance, humans are better than this, but we’ve gotta develop antibodies to this new strain of leech.
Your client sounds like a prick of a person - I hope you find better clients!
Every industry goes through a cycle of birth, explosion of creativity, enormous profitability, followed by consolidation and a small corporate class, and a large hobby class.
A time ago, sewing and tailoring was a valuable skill. Cheap clothes made it unnecessary. Today sewing is a hobby and most people who sew do so at a lower quality than a machine. You can say the same about pottery and ceramics.
There was a time when there were hundreds of car companies. Folks who wanted to could build a car, or plane, from scratch. That's not possible anymore.
Today lots of people cook at home at a level far superior to (at least) fast food restaurants. But of course fast food still exists.
I have been lucky to spend my career at the birth of the industry. It is now moving into the next stage, the commoditization of the skill set. I've seen the industry change before though, this is just the next cycle of that.
Lots of people will make a lot of software for themselves. But they won't sell it. Lots of other people will buy software because programming (ai or not) won't interest them. Programming isn't the skill here. Everything else in the business is.
I am dealing with it by walking away from the internet and connected technology as much as possible.
Unfortunately, generally if people can do something, they will. And with AI systems they have been given one of the largest short cuts possible, thus they take it relentlessly. There is no concern for quality so long as it is good enough to benefit them.
They will try to rationalize it but it typically ends up in moral corruption of "If I don't, they will."
It saddens me because I saw the vision of what computers and connected technology could be in the 90's and 2000's, only to see it turn bitter.
I remember reading an essay by Richard Stallman calling all this kind of stuff out in the late 1980's and I kind of hate that he got it so right. In assuming that many will take the power play and the convenience means that this is the path we take.
The more you can walk away form this stuff the better even if you don't want to.
I agree with this sentiment. I’m going back to books, notebooks and a unconnected computer if I genuinely want to learn some programming —- to bang my head against the walls so many times until I get it —- like what people did before the Internet era.
It is good for them TBH. I don’t think there is anyway to stop that, and they do genuinely feel good so it’s kinda fine for me.
I have learned to cope with AI tools at work, but use it scarcely, and went back to books and hand-coding if I really want to learn something because that’s the only way that makes the knowledge stays in my brain a bit longer.
I did lose some interests in programming in general, but AI is just a part of the reason —- most of it is because I don’t have good mental health —- and AI is part of the reason triggering anxiety.
Some skills are impressive, hard to learn and take years or decades to master but are essentially worthless in a monetary sense. Just yesterday I witnessed a musician masterfully playing a beautiful piece on the accordion. Only he wasn't playing in a great music hall, he was in a busy subway station hoping to collect a few coins from passersby. I assume he mostly did it for the love of the game, while he could have made more money delivering food or sorting boxes at Amazon.
That got me thinking that programming might be like that in the near future, it's still an impressive skill for a human to learn and master and it takes tremendous effort and the craft itself is beautiful, but economically it will just not matter anymore. And in the same way as the music industry today is bigger than it ever was and there's tremendous money in it but 95-99 % of highly talented musicians will never earn a decent wage with it, the software industry will be bigger than it ever was but the money will be highly concentrated in the hands of a few players. Maybe we will still have some rockstar programmers than can masterfully command legions of agents or that win the love of the crowd for their unique work, but most of us will be enjoying this craft as a creative hobby and will do other things for a living.
Then again, coming back to the music parable, for a long time "amateurs" can make music with software tools without having any talent or even knowing musical notation or anything about tempo. Does that make them musicians? So take solace in the fact that these people aren't programmers and never will be, they're just pushing buttons on a synth board watching the "music" that comes out. Mastering a skill, regardless of what it is, will still matter to people, it will just not be worthwhile economically for most of us. There are so many things in that category, running for example isn't worthwhile for most of us in an economic sense as you have to be at the top 0.1 % of runners to make a living with it, still it has tremendous benefits and brings enjoyment.
I've read similar sentiments over the past year, it seems to be a recurring theme.
It's been amazing to participate in a hobby-turned-profession for the last two decades or so. But did we get into it because it was easy? No. Technology, computers, Internet, was a new world, full of excitement, mystery, and exploration. There may have been no immediate ROI in learning how to set up a Geocities site, but it was the gateway to HTML, programming, and eventually led to, what I hope has been, a rewarding career.
The industry isn't being "destroyed" by AI, that started happening with PE and MBAs long before, or maybe it was fucked from the get-go, and we've been very lucky to have had well-paying jobs for typing strange things into a computer. But now that it's easy for the non-tech commoner to do it, we're upset? Fishy NIMBYism something something.
I went through a similar disillusionment phase for a few months as I tried to apply my old thinking to this new era. I had to just let the AI agents own the line-level, function-level, and even class-level responsibilities, while I focused on the file names and writing good prompts. Naming is everything in computer science, as they say.
On personal projects, I'm executing on things that were out of reach before (or required extensive research), like (re)learning hardware, writing RTOS firmware, PCB design, etc. It's my learning PHP3/VB phase, and I love it. What matters now, more than ever, is to have good taste.
Give it time for the mindset shift to happen. Take a break, if you can. You won't miss anything anyway, a few new models, harnesses, and workflows will have appeared, and they take about 5 minutes to understand. So the differentiating factors between you and the next pleb are your fundamentals, good taste, and creativity.
The cost of producing code has dropped to almost zero, but the cost of knowing whether that code is actually useful hasn't.
I think the same is true for images, videos, and music. The cost of producing content is approaching zero, but taste, originality, judgment, and intent still matter.
In a world where anyone can create almost anything, having good taste could become increasingly important.
This can’t go on, so it won’t. The 20s will be looked back at as a really awful time except for the ultra rich. Wait and watch and give actual people a chance, humans are better than this, but we’ve gotta develop antibodies to this new strain of leech.
Your client sounds like a prick of a person - I hope you find better clients!
Every industry goes through a cycle of birth, explosion of creativity, enormous profitability, followed by consolidation and a small corporate class, and a large hobby class.
A time ago, sewing and tailoring was a valuable skill. Cheap clothes made it unnecessary. Today sewing is a hobby and most people who sew do so at a lower quality than a machine. You can say the same about pottery and ceramics.
There was a time when there were hundreds of car companies. Folks who wanted to could build a car, or plane, from scratch. That's not possible anymore.
Today lots of people cook at home at a level far superior to (at least) fast food restaurants. But of course fast food still exists.
I have been lucky to spend my career at the birth of the industry. It is now moving into the next stage, the commoditization of the skill set. I've seen the industry change before though, this is just the next cycle of that.
Lots of people will make a lot of software for themselves. But they won't sell it. Lots of other people will buy software because programming (ai or not) won't interest them. Programming isn't the skill here. Everything else in the business is.
I am dealing with it by walking away from the internet and connected technology as much as possible.
Unfortunately, generally if people can do something, they will. And with AI systems they have been given one of the largest short cuts possible, thus they take it relentlessly. There is no concern for quality so long as it is good enough to benefit them.
They will try to rationalize it but it typically ends up in moral corruption of "If I don't, they will."
It saddens me because I saw the vision of what computers and connected technology could be in the 90's and 2000's, only to see it turn bitter.
I remember reading an essay by Richard Stallman calling all this kind of stuff out in the late 1980's and I kind of hate that he got it so right. In assuming that many will take the power play and the convenience means that this is the path we take.
The more you can walk away form this stuff the better even if you don't want to.
I agree with this sentiment. I’m going back to books, notebooks and a unconnected computer if I genuinely want to learn some programming —- to bang my head against the walls so many times until I get it —- like what people did before the Internet era.
It is good for them TBH. I don’t think there is anyway to stop that, and they do genuinely feel good so it’s kinda fine for me.
I have learned to cope with AI tools at work, but use it scarcely, and went back to books and hand-coding if I really want to learn something because that’s the only way that makes the knowledge stays in my brain a bit longer.
I did lose some interests in programming in general, but AI is just a part of the reason —- most of it is because I don’t have good mental health —- and AI is part of the reason triggering anxiety.
Some skills are impressive, hard to learn and take years or decades to master but are essentially worthless in a monetary sense. Just yesterday I witnessed a musician masterfully playing a beautiful piece on the accordion. Only he wasn't playing in a great music hall, he was in a busy subway station hoping to collect a few coins from passersby. I assume he mostly did it for the love of the game, while he could have made more money delivering food or sorting boxes at Amazon.
That got me thinking that programming might be like that in the near future, it's still an impressive skill for a human to learn and master and it takes tremendous effort and the craft itself is beautiful, but economically it will just not matter anymore. And in the same way as the music industry today is bigger than it ever was and there's tremendous money in it but 95-99 % of highly talented musicians will never earn a decent wage with it, the software industry will be bigger than it ever was but the money will be highly concentrated in the hands of a few players. Maybe we will still have some rockstar programmers than can masterfully command legions of agents or that win the love of the crowd for their unique work, but most of us will be enjoying this craft as a creative hobby and will do other things for a living.
Then again, coming back to the music parable, for a long time "amateurs" can make music with software tools without having any talent or even knowing musical notation or anything about tempo. Does that make them musicians? So take solace in the fact that these people aren't programmers and never will be, they're just pushing buttons on a synth board watching the "music" that comes out. Mastering a skill, regardless of what it is, will still matter to people, it will just not be worthwhile economically for most of us. There are so many things in that category, running for example isn't worthwhile for most of us in an economic sense as you have to be at the top 0.1 % of runners to make a living with it, still it has tremendous benefits and brings enjoyment.
one of my first ongoing clients, who sort of helped me kickstart my freelancing "career".
When you are starting out, you will tend not to get the best clients.
It’s ok to outgrow a client.
You are almost seeing it. If good taste and creativity is the new seperator then please tell me since when was that the strength of programmers?
That's what's scary isn't it?
There are people with more good taste and creativity than you.They actually built careers with it.
And that's who you need to catch up to now.
Or you can dig I guess and be an artisinal programmer. There's honour in that ,I hear. Just no paycheck.
I've read similar sentiments over the past year, it seems to be a recurring theme.
It's been amazing to participate in a hobby-turned-profession for the last two decades or so. But did we get into it because it was easy? No. Technology, computers, Internet, was a new world, full of excitement, mystery, and exploration. There may have been no immediate ROI in learning how to set up a Geocities site, but it was the gateway to HTML, programming, and eventually led to, what I hope has been, a rewarding career.
The industry isn't being "destroyed" by AI, that started happening with PE and MBAs long before, or maybe it was fucked from the get-go, and we've been very lucky to have had well-paying jobs for typing strange things into a computer. But now that it's easy for the non-tech commoner to do it, we're upset? Fishy NIMBYism something something.
I went through a similar disillusionment phase for a few months as I tried to apply my old thinking to this new era. I had to just let the AI agents own the line-level, function-level, and even class-level responsibilities, while I focused on the file names and writing good prompts. Naming is everything in computer science, as they say.
On personal projects, I'm executing on things that were out of reach before (or required extensive research), like (re)learning hardware, writing RTOS firmware, PCB design, etc. It's my learning PHP3/VB phase, and I love it. What matters now, more than ever, is to have good taste.
Give it time for the mindset shift to happen. Take a break, if you can. You won't miss anything anyway, a few new models, harnesses, and workflows will have appeared, and they take about 5 minutes to understand. So the differentiating factors between you and the next pleb are your fundamentals, good taste, and creativity.
Be like water, etc.