[obblekk]

I don't think so. Junior engineers will learn much much faster than the past (think about how much more effective GPT4 is as a learning tool than the "rubber ducky method" or manpages or even stackoverflow).

And a part of their role will morph into prompting GPT4 (much like this senior engineer has started doing).

If GPTx ends up in the narrow area where it's universally smarter than junior engs but definitely not capable of being a senior eng, then junior engs will just shift to the little remaining work for senior engs, shadow them for months to years like an apprenticeship.

Of course in that case the total number of eng needed will also decrease (already only a small percent ever get good enough to be considered truly senior), so there will be selection bias toward more intelligent engineers who are a step above GPTx. If none are left, then the profession will be gone and there will be no problem.

[tivert]

> I don't think so. Junior engineers will learn much much faster than the past (think about how much more effective GPT4 is as a learning tool than the "rubber ducky method" or manpages or even stackoverflow).

That's bunk. The OP is literally "feel[s] the need to hire junior" engineers because he can ChatGPT that work. How are they going to learn a job they won't be given the opportunity to have much faster?

> If GPTx ends up in the narrow area where it's universally smarter than junior engs but definitely not capable of being a senior eng, then junior engs will just shift to the little remaining work for senior engs, shadow them for months to years like an apprenticeship.

That doesn't make much sense. That kind of apprenticeship would be pure charity, so it's not going to happen. No one is going to learn to be a senior engineer in "months," and no one (except someone's rich parents) is going to pay for someone to sit around unproductively in and office for years while they learn. Even interns are required to produce output that adds value. They do that by successfully completing junior-level tasks that need to be done well.

[obblekk]

It's not charity, it's capacity planning but at a lower scale than before.

There's always a set of junior eng with high growth potential who are being trained to become senior. They will continue be hired, albeit with less simple work than before, because most companies do run scenario planning like "what if X left who is our backup".

The juniors who are not expected to ever grow to that level would no longer be sought out for simpler tasks as those tasks will be automated away.

Net impact is fewer total engineers, but those who remain are at a higher level of average skill.

[andrei_says_]

When I hire juniors it is because I’m placing them on a path to independent decision making and autonomous work, as fast as possible.

They are to become an independent person, taking independent actions, aligned with the current vision and goals.

I don’t want a permanent increase of my own workload which is what working with chatgpt feels like.

[tivert]

> I don't think so. Junior engineers will learn much much faster than the past (think about how much more effective GPT4 is as a learning tool than the "rubber ducky method" or manpages or even stackoverflow).

That's bunk. The OP is literally "feel[s] the need to hire junior" engineers because he can ChatGPT that work. How are they going to learn a job they won't be given the opportunity to have much faster?

> If GPTx ends up in the narrow area where it's universally smarter than junior engs but definitely not capable of being a senior eng, then junior engs will just shift to the little remaining work for senior engs, shadow them for months to years like an apprenticeship.

That doesn't make any sense. That kind of apprenticeship is pure charity, so it's not going to happen.

[CameronNemo]

You think GPT4 is more effective than learning how to read a manual? Or some of the best SO answers?

[duccinator]

Yes, even GPT3.5 is better. I am in uni, and LLMs are probably the best teachers I have had the experience to learn from(and I have had some great teachers and professors). They work even better if you feed them the content of a book/manual/documentation as a reference.

They do suck at solving problems correctly, however if you give them an incorrect solution and ask them to spot mistakes, or just ask for a general method to do a problem, it works out.

However, they might not yet compare to the best of humans. The best SO answers probably represent 0.01% of the answers, which is a high bar. I am certain very amazing teachers and professors exist out there in the world whom LLMs can't beat yet but the average can't compete.

[smcin]

> Yes, even GPT3.5 is better. I am in uni, and LLMs are probably the best teachers... They do suck at solving problems correctly...

The discussion was specifically about LLMs to write software. Not about university essays or articles or exams. Are you claiming GPT3.5 is better at writing bug-free software than the average software engineer?

[duccinator]

No, please read my response again. My claim is that GPTs are better than human teachers, for most* domains, including software.

However, I do think a framework needs to be developed for formally learning any particular topic. If you are self learning using just chatgpt, you might miss out on a few key things. I haven't used it much personally but the khan academy bot is close.

[jokethrowaway]

Yes, mainly because of the work of experts which went into GPT4.

For example, Llama is nowhere close (even if it's pretty good).

You can think of GPT4 as a way to flexibly access a lot of knowledge from domain experts. Sure, sometimes that flexibility hallucinates things, but it mostly works and we can verify a large part of it.

[thejackgoode]

GPT explains things in a personalised way, it's in no way in the same league as manuals. It's each user's native language.

[_lnwk]

Why would you take a junior then as an apprentice if they won't generate any value at all?