This post is focused mainly on my own personal feelings and impacts but don’t think I don’t also see the broader societal impacts. I’ll touch on them too, but mostly this is just my personal perspective. I figure it may resonate with others given that Lemmy has so many “tech people.”
I have a “safe” software job which for years I’ve considered quitting in order to improve my mental health. I have been saving money for a long time. Prior to LLMs slowly automating jobs like mine away, I felt like I could quit, take a couple months off, and then find a better job. Maybe even come back to the same company after some recovery from burnout. It’s taken several years to feel able to do such a thing.
Today, however, I am afraid to do that. I am worried finding a job will no longer be somewhat trivial like it was a decade ago. There will be less software jobs, and the ones that exist will be pushing LLMs on their devs hard. My current job is doing that, less overtly than many companies would, but I am feeling the pressure.
So besides the feeling of having my options eliminated, I’m feeling actually likely to be laid off in the next few years, so I’m “lucky to even have it”. In the meantime, there is a malaise in the air on my team. People are using LLMs for work but I think most everyone has pretty mixed feelings about it. Especially given the climate impact we’re setting in motion.
Then outside my workplace, it feels like the general population is engaged in a mass psychosis. Many people genuinely are convinced that slop is good enough for most things. I know that teachers are using it to create shitty lessons in schools, and students are using it to avoid doing work. There literally is no chance that society will not see a slew of very negative consequences from this.
The creativity I expressed in my work is being devalued and stolen and I cannot even feel safe taking any time off or can find another job without a lot of pain, or any solace in the fact that I should be set for retiring without much worry. I know that it was a privilege to have ever felt able to take off, however it feels bad for that opportunity to have been taken away by ruthless capitalists pushing shitty robots on every living human.
I’m thinking about all this a lot, and it’s hard not to. It sucks. That’s all.
For me the worst part is the people using AI to do work for them are not actually learning anything other than how to write a better prompt.
Oh yeah. Our very uneducated population in America is about to get a lot dumber. It’s frightening.
There was a two hour meeting at my job trying sell employees on how great AI is because it can do loss analysis, write introductory emails, quote comparisons etc.
After the meeting my manager asked me what I thought. I told them I’m no better at doing my job but I am 100% better at writing prompts to hide my deficiencies.
In software you have these former “elites” like Uncle Bob and DHH who used to talk about software quality just brag about how it’s all useless now and to just vibe everything. (I think Bob said some shit like there only being 1 year left for us). So when you have these types of “elite” people saying it, it pollutes the field on top of it as well.
(I’m using the word elite unseriously, to be clear)
Conservatives pushed it. They destroyed the protections, they opposed any solutions, they helped themselves, they push the systems.
We could have had nice things if we did this carefully and deliberately, instead of racing at it, all actions exceptions. We could have had ethical protections, no stealing, consideration for creativity, helping, slower progression. But as a society and as a technology, we didn’t practice delayed gratification nor discipline nor wisdom nor responsibility.
And now we all pay the price for a few people’s gain.
The conservative way.
Conservatism is the real extinction risk.
Yep.
now we all pay the price for a few people’s gain.
This is just what they would call “freedom”, without any of hint of irony.
When I get my chance, everyone else is going to pay! /s
I’m a senior full stack dev, 22 years into it. I lost my job 16 months ago due to federal funding cuts killing a project I was specifically hired to build.
I have landed a total of 5 interviews since then. Rejected or ghosted. I’ve stopped tracking the number of applications/resumes I have submitted, but as of this past July, it was close to 150.
I think my time in this line of work is done. I’m looking at finding a different type of work that isn’t so completely fucked up from AI and the (very public) fascist takeover of the open source ecosystem.
I’ll still code, but it’ll be on my terms. No AI, no deadlines. Just like how it started for me a long time ago.
Good news? An AI bubble burst is on the horizon. Bad news? An Ai bubble burst is on the horizon.
The bubble pop will have different effects here though too. Some people will be hired back, some will see their jobs disappear. It’s going to be an interesting ride.
Yeah. The uncertainty of that inevitable burst is also a source of anxiety for me.
There are a lot of young people moving away from Seattle because they can’t get a job. This is not a good sign. If they’re not hiring the people they can get the cheapest, it’s not going to be fun.
I see why you have dread, but hopefully you can hang on through the storm. Don’t take it personal and try to have fun on your off time. You are not your job.
If they’re not hiring the people they can get the cheapest, it’s not going to be fun.
Hello from India. I think after the bubble bursts, we will see a lot more companies relying on cheap labour from India, Vietnam, Philippines etc.
Yeah, probably. They’re already doing that now.
Yeah I know I’m not my job. It’s my ability to stop working a job that worries me most. Capitalism is a soul sucker.
Genuinely good reminder about having fun though. I need to focus more on the now than the someday.
Yeah I know I’m not my job.
That’s cool that you know that. I had a hard time figuring that out right out of school.
Genuinely good reminder about having fun though. I need to focus more on the now than the someday.
Yep, day by day.
I feel the “mass psychosis” regarding “good enough” is underrated. We already got a collective attention span of 30s maximum due to social media and short videos. And products are made with the pareto principle in mind. 80% the way is close enough. Seems to me in the upcoming AI age(?) this is the fundamental design principle. Quality and craftsmanship will become niche. We’re doing quantity instead. Who needs movies when we can have billions of funny 15sec clips? Who needs a smartphone app that doesn’t bail on you when it really counts?
A bit sad. We used to see value in something like a nice quality pair of boots. Now we switch to TEMU ones.
Care to explain?
Saturn Devouring His Son depicts the Greek myth in which Chronus devours his children to avoid his own demise. So stealing their futures in an ultimately futile attempt to prolong his.
Gotcha, thanks. I’m pretty rusty on my art history, and Greek mythology for that matter.
I just like it as a visceral image of the powers of the past trying to steal from the future. It works in a lot of contexts where things that should feel viscerally distressing are diluted to anxiety by dehumanizing systems.
The future isn’t set in stone. The ideas of the past will only get us to far.
Rather, the times that we live in call for a new philosophy that puts an revitalized emphases on humanity, culture, creativity and comradery between real people.
If you are an American worker, I highly recommend talking to your HR leave provider about how to get a Family Medical Leave of Absence (FMLA). This would help in your exact scenario. There may be some paper work that you may have to have a doctor fill out for you. I haven’t done it myself but one of the people I worked with used it when they were experiencing burnout. They took off a few months and came back feeling better.
I’ve heard things are getting better but I wonder if that is anecdotal to that specific person who told me. I want to find something new myself that is more equitable for the employees (co-op tech collective, anyone?).
Protip: burnout is not considered a medical condition. If you are experiencing a medical condition as a result of your burnout, for example extreme irritability and anxiety, the doctor needs to write it as that. You can also take partial FMLA, for example 30hr weeks while caring for a sick spouse the other 10hrs.
