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The proletarianization of tech workers (doctorow.medium.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by erlend_sh@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

Then that dream shrank to: work for a giant for a few years, quit, do a fake startup, get acqui-hired by your old employer, as a complicated way of getting a bonus and a promotion.

Then the dream shrank further: work for a tech giant for your whole life, get free kombucha and massages on Wednesdays.

And now, the dream is over. All that’s left is: work for a tech giant until they fire your ass, like those 12,000 Googlers who got fired six months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years.

We deserve better than this. We can get it.

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[-] Shadywack@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Not yet, but would you agree that businesses desire the ability to automate software engineering and reduce developer headcount by demanding an AI supplemented development work flow?

[-] expr@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Sure, just like businesses have always wanted "no-code" solutions to their problems to cut out the need for software engineers. We all know how that turned out. There was no threat then, and there's no threat now.

[-] AstridWipenaugh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

AI coding is just another tool developers have at their disposal now. It will just raise the bar for expected output. I expect within a few years it will be popular to describe a process, have an AI tool spit out some intern-grade hot mess that maybe compiles, then have a junior developer fix it, and a senior developer write the custom/complex parts. If the AI is good enough, it'll be a significant time saver for it to get you more than half way to done.

It could even be tamed with a test-driven development approach. Write a bunch of good tests and have the AI generate code that passes the tests. What could possibly go wrong... lol

[-] expr@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

I find it highly overrated in terms of productivity in general, particularly when writing anything remotely non-trivial/company-specific.

There's also the absolutely massive issue of licensing/IP/etc. Any company that's not full of dumbasses should recognize the massive risk and liability involved and stay the fuck away.

this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023

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