[sasmithjr]

I don't think it's an exclusive choice between the two, though. I think senior engineers will end up doing both. Looking at GitHub Copilot's agent, it can work asynchronously from the user, so a senior engineer can send it off to work on multiple issues at once while still working on tasks that aren't well suited for the agent.

And really, I think many senior engineers are already doing both in a lot of cases where they're helping guide and teach junior and early mid-level developers.

[lapcat]

> And really, I think many senior engineers are already doing both in a lot of cases where they're helping guide and teach junior and early mid-level developers.

Babysitting and correcting automated tools is radically different from mentoring less experienced engineers. First, and most important IMO, there's no relationship. It's entirely impersonal. You become alienated from your fellow humans. I'm reminded of Mark Zuckerberg recently claiming that in the future, most of your "friends" will be A.I. That's not an ideal, it's a damn dystopia.

Moreover, you're not teaching the LLM anything. If the LLMs happen to become better in the future, that's not due to your mentoring. The time you spend reviewing the automatically generated code does not have any productive side effects, doesn't help to "level up" your coworkers/copilots.

Also, since LLMs aren't human, they don't make human mistakes. In some sense, reviewing a human engineer's code is an exercise in mind reading: you can guess what they were thinking, and where they might have overlooked something. But LLMs don't "think" in the same way, and they tend to produce bizarre results and mistakes that a human would never make. Reviewing their code can be a very different, and indeed unpleasant WTF experience.

[bluefirebrand]

Guiding and teaching developers is rewarding because human connections are important

I don't mentor juniors because it makes me more productive I mentor juniors because I enjoy watching a human grow and develop and gain expertise

I am reminded of reports that Ian McKellen broke down crying on the set of one of The Hobbit movies because the joy of being an actor for him was nothing like acting on green screen sets delivering lines to a tennis ball on a stick

[ookblah]

and just to play devil's advocate maybe some people don't enjoy that? remove the issue of training the next generation for a moment.

just like with open vs. closed offices or remote vs in-person, maybe some people have all the human interaction they want outside of work and don't mind "talking" to some AI as long as it gets shit done in the manner they want.

[lapcat]

> and just to play devil's advocate

Your comment would be improved by simply removing that phrase. It adds nothing and in fact detracts.

> just like with open vs. closed offices or remote vs in-person, maybe some people have all the human interaction they want outside of work and don't mind "talking" to some AI as long as it gets shit done in the manner they want.

You're presenting a false dichotomy. If someone doesn't enjoying mentoring juniors, that's fine. They shouldn't have to. But why would one have to choose between mentoring juniors or babysitting LLM agents? How about neither?

sasmithjr was apparently trying to defend babysitting A.I. by making an analogy with mentoring juniors, whereas I replied by arguing that the two are not alike. Whether or not you enjoy using A.I. is an entirely separate issue, independent of mentoring.

[sasmithjr]

> sasmithjr was apparently trying to defend babysitting A.I. by making an analogy with mentoring juniors

I regret adding that last bit to my comment because my main point (which I clearly messed up emphasizing and communicating) is that I think you’re presenting a false dichotomy in the original comment. Now that work can be done with LLMs asynchronously, it’s possible to both write your own code and guide LLMs as they need it when you have down time. And nothing about that requires stopping other functions of the job like mentoring and teaching juniors, either, so you can still build relationships on the job, too.

If having to attend to an LLM in any way makes the job worse for you, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. So far, LLMs feel like one of many other automations that I use frequently and haven’t really changed my satisfaction with my job.

[lapcat]

> If having to attend to an LLM in any way makes the job worse for you

I think you're downplaying the nightmare scenario, and your own previous comment already suggests a more expansive use of LLM: "so a senior engineer can send it off to work on multiple issues at once".

What I fear, and what I already see happening to an extent, is a top-down corporate mandate to use AI, indeed a mandate to maximize the use of AI in order to maximize (alleged) "productivity". Ultimately, then, senior engineers become glorified babysitters of the AI. It's not about the personal choice of the engineer, just like, as the other commenter mentioned, open vs. closed offices or remote vs. in-person are often not the choice of individual engineers but rather a top-down corporate mandate.

We've already seen a corporate backlash against remote work and a widespread top-down demand for RTO. That's real; it's happened and is happening.

[ookblah]

i was trying to frame it as something i'm also grappling with, but i digress poor choice of words.

maybe you're responding to the wrong person? because i'm not even disagreeing with you on that. maybe they want both or neither, that's fine.

the person i'm responding to is framing mentoring as some kind must have from a "socialization" standpoint (which i disagreed with, but i get the practical aspect of it where if you don't have people train juniors there won't be seniors).

[bluefirebrand]

No, not "socialization" as in "having social interactions with other people"

I mean "socialization" as in "being a positive part of and building a society worth living in"

[ookblah]

and why do you think that has to exist solely within the confines of work? not that you said that, but your comments seem to suggest that if you don't like or want to mentor junior devs then you don't value human connections. thus my comment about having enough connections outside of work.

if it's rewarding to you that's great, but don't frame it as something bigger than it is. i would hope we are all "being a positive part of and building a society worth living in" in our own way.

[bluefirebrand]

> maybe some people have all the human interaction they want outside of work and don't mind "talking" to some AI as long as it gets shit done in the manner they want

This isn't about satisfying a person's need for socializing it is about satisfying society's need for well socialized people

You can prefer closed offices and still be a well socialized person

You can prefer remote work and still be a well socialized person

You can even prefer working alone and still be a well socialized person

If you are in favor of replacing all humans with machines, you are pretty much by definition an asocial person and society should reject you

[ookblah]

you're making a strawman here. it was never black and white and i never advocated all humans being replaced with machines so we have zero interaction with each other.

every technological push has been to automate more and more and every time that's happened we've reduced socialization to some extent or changed the nature of it (social media anyone? and yes, this also has everything to do with remote vs in-person, etc, all which pull the lever on what level of socialization is acceptable).

just because it doesn't fit your particular brand doesn't mean it's wrong, and it's clear this is pushing on your line where you find it unacceptable. i could just as well argue that people who do not show up to an in-person office are not "socialized" to the degree society needs them to be.

the debate has always been to what degree is this acceptable.