[tekknik]

> I find that having boilerplate code for making web service calls, database connections, etc. is an overall time saver.

Why? If you setting up service calls correctly you have a client you instantiate and call some method on. Your service calling should be one line plus error handling (1-3 more lines). Databases are initialized once, again 2-3 lines of code.

If you think any of this is a time saver, or is difficult, your job is at risk from copilot. You are training your successor.

[mark_l_watson]

Well, I am in my 70s so job security is not really anything I think about.

Funny, but about 35 years ago I blocked my boss’s boss from buying a company that wrote an “AI coding tool”. I change my mind about things and what I found ridiculously simple and un-useful 35 years ago, is very different than Copilot.

I don’t think it takes a lot of imagination to fully conceptualize how much AI tools will change knowledge work.

I have been a paid AI practitioner since 1982 and I find it exciting how fast the field is now progressing. I worked as a consultant at Google in 2013 with their Knowledge Graph and that opened my eyes to the possibilities of so much structured and organized (they had a very good Ontology team) knowledge. Six years ago I managed a deep learning team at Capital One and mostly because of the strong team, I was surprised how effective deep learning is for practical problems.

One last example: in the 1980s I spent a fair amount of time trying to write code manually for anaphora resolution - a problem that BERT models now solve “simply.”

[tekknik]

> Well, I am in my 70s so job security is not really anything I think about.

Many of us are not 70, so we have to be concerned about this. You seem gleeful, I’m concerned. Concerned for everyone about to lose their job, concerned for the pay drop those that don’t lose them will see. All around I see this as a bad idea but then people like you come in and push it forward.