alt Hacker NewsI too had the "ok, I better dive in", rather than ducking out epiphany. Similar story, 37 years of IT, many roles, top performer, yada yada yada. I bought a MacBook pro 3 weeks ago(all the cool kids are doing it). I've been developing various automated audit and compliance based projects with Claude and openai. Having been a developer for perhaps 20 of those years, I find this new experience amazing.
I've been leveraging a lay audience (one of my teams) to deep dive requirements, wants etc.
Anyway, I'm so torn. I like these people, I hate to see them lose their jobs. I'll retire soon, I want to find a better, "feel good role" than my current, yet very lucrative situation.
I want to leverage my years of good software design for good. Where, for who?
--old lost IT guy in FL
And I hear "why am I helping you code me out of a job". I scare them with "if you help, you'll stay", assuming they get that what I really mean is "if you duck away, bury you're head in the sand, you'll be out"
A thing I think a lot in the conversations about AI is this:
You don't have any choice. Good or bad. It's here. Get over it.
I know that back in the day, people said automobiles were bad and evil and costing the buggywhip makers their jobs. Unfortunately for them, the decision to use cars had already been made.
I do AI with fervor because I live in the real world and the decision has already been made. You can't stop AI by pretending it's optional.
Adapt or die.