zlacker

>>simonw+(OP)
I'm curious how all of the progress will be seen if it does indeed result in mass unemployment (but not eradication) of professional software engineers.

>>websit+nc
My prediction: If we can successfully get rid of most software engineers, we can get rid of most knowledge work. Given the state of robotics, manual labor is likely to outlive intellectual labor.

>>ori_b+Pd
I would have agreed with this a few months ago, but something Ive learned is that the ability to verify an LLMs output is paramount to its value. In software, you can review its output, add tests, on top of other adversarial techniques to verify the output immediately after generation.

With most other knowledge work, I don't think that is the case. Maybe actuarial or accounting work, but most knowledge work exists at a cross section of function and taste, and the latter isn't an automatically verifiable output.

>>BobbyJ+ao
I also believe this - I think it will probably just disrupt software engineering and any other digital medium with mass internet publication (i.e. things RLVR can use). For the short term future it seems to need a lot of data to train on, and no other profession has posted the same amount of verifiable material. The open source altruism has disrupted the profession in the end; just not in the way people first predicted. I don't think it will disrupt most knowledge work for a number of reasons. Most knowledge professions have "credentials' (i.e. gatekeeping) and they can see what is happening to SWE's and are acting accordingly. I'm hearing it firsthand at least locally in things like law, even accounting, etc. Society will ironically respect these professions more for doing so.

Any data, verifiability, rules of thumb, tests, etc are being kept secret. You pay for the result, but don't know the means.