Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by fosterfriends 391 days ago
++ Kind of my whole thesis with Graphite. As more code gets AI-generated, the weight shifts to review, testing, and integration. Even as someone helping build AI code reviewers, we'll _need_ humans stamping forever - for many reasons, but fundamentally for accountability. A computer can never be held accountable

https://constelisvoss.com/pages/a-computer-can-never-be-held...
2 comments
hintymad 391 days ago
> A computer can never be held accountable

I think the issue is not about humans being entirely replaced. Instead, the issue is that if AI replaces enough number of knowledge workers while there's no new or expanded market to absorb the workforce, the new balance of supply and demand will mean that many of us will have suppressed pay or worse, losing our jobs forever.

link
TeMPOraL 391 days ago
That is true regardless of whether there is or isn't a "new or expanded market to absorb the workforce".

It's a crucial insight that's usually missed or eluded in discussions about automation and workforce - unless you're literally at the beginning of your career, losing your career to automation screws you over big time, forever. At best, you'll have to downsize your entire lifestyle, and that of your family, to be commensurate with your now entry-level pay. If you're halfway through the career that suddenly ended, you won't recover.

All the new jobs and markets are for the kids. Mind you, not your kids - your kids are going to be disadvantaged by their household being suddenly thrown into financial insecurity or downright poverty, and may not even get a chance to start a good career path with their peers.

That, not "anti technology sentiment", is why Luddites smashed the looms. Those were people who got rug-pulled by business decisions and thrown into poverty, along with their families and communities.

link
nadis 388 days ago
> A computer can never be held accountable

I feel like I've been thinking along similar lines recently (due to re-read this though!) but instead of "computer" am replacing it with "AI" or "Agents" these days. Same point holds true.

link