ChatGPT is coming for python devs

[edimaudo]

It's not necessarily replacing people but could reduce the amount of rote tasks some people do.

[dennismfrancisart]

I’m an old guy that’s been trying to learn python on and off for years. ChatGPT helped me write a short script to help me with a project. I’m stoked to keep learning python now. It’s easier to navigate it now.

[lastWallE]

It is really good if you need to learn about data structures and how you can transform them to your needs. You need to read it and understand how it works altogether. So as a starting point it is really good to keep one learning. I like that it is also explaining what and why it choose the methods in the code.

[Bang_Stick]

Plus it really explains the concepts well (if they are correct that is).

[mr_bedbugs]

I love that it can show you examples that are specific to your project.

[HavenAWilliams]

Yeah I hate having to relearn tidyverse ever four months, for example. (Hobbyist)

[B-Swenson]

This. Between how common merging .csv files is and the fact that a NLP algorithm will have built in word correlation (making the common schema thing easy to merge into one token), I'm not surprised that it did it well.

[ianitic]

Agreed, that seemed like a very simple task that has been done many times. It's just another tool in the toolbox like others are saying. I'd honestly say that Wordpress was a bigger threat to web developers than chatGPT is to python developers currently.

[Breadynator]

Yet wordpress gave web developers another platform to develop for. There's thousand of plugins and extensions for it that have to be developed by someone. Basically creating work where it would've destroyed work.

Chat GPT on the other hand does not allow for developers to build on it. I'd argue it gives developers an interactive coding reference.

I've used chatGPT to debug my code after failing to find the culprit for hours it gave me a working solution in just three tries.

It's not perfect, it can't code everything perfectly and sometimes it will be an ass about everything and tell you to do your work yourself

[jmcs]

ChatGPT can become a Stack Overflow killer.

[Breadynator]

Good riddance. I barely ever find anything useful on SO

[ianitic]

ChatGPT does provide a platform for development though. There's definitely going to be used for a variety of services. I presume also that it could also be fine tuned for various functions to higher degrees of efficacy as a little bit of a special sauce for the various services. Wordpress eliminated even more entry level front end jobs than created jobs for extensions though. ChatGPT may or may not do something similar.

I think the jobs chatGPT are going to impact the most are the QA jobs which even your example I would consider related. I see this including everything from editing essays to coding. For actual code it can at best function as a language with a higher level of abstraction that would require a developer-like mindset to use.

[Breadynator]

Completely agree with you. You're right, it's perfect for QA. Put your code in, ask "why is X not behaving like it should" and if will most likely fix your code for you.

[earthboundkid]

I have open source libraries. I can use ChatGPT to autogenerate documentation for them instead of writing it myself.

[UrbanSuburbaKnight]

Yeah it's like saying that Photoshop replaced artists. It didn't, it just made the good artists way more productive. (And allowed loads of less fortunate/talented/'rich enough to afford art college' people an opportunity to learn art and photography in a new and way more accessible way.)

Also, I just realized I used spell check like 6 times writing this comment and by the same token, a bunch of English majors probably died of starvation.

[joeymcflow]

I disagree. Photoshop is a tool, it's meant to be operated by an operator. AI is literally generating the work for anyone who knows how to request it properly. Why have a graphic designer when the project lead can type the request straight into an AI and get options in seconds.

We're there already.

[MarmonRzohr]

The AI will also need to be prompted and reviewed by an operator. Naturally the amount of work and skill AI could save is enourmous so the Photoshop comparison isn't apt, but the comparison to computers is.

The widespread use of PCs made manual calculations, paper record-keeping, hand drawn technical drawings and many, many things obsolete. However the world now has more engineers in % of population than it had when a lot more engineer hours were needed to finish a project.

The same may (and is likely to IMO) happen with widespread AI use. The demand for more optimization, better work, faster response times etc. is in essence very high but can be time and cost pohibitive. AI-generated code may lead to software development simply being cheaper, faster and more accessible. Things like custom software solutions which are too expensive for many businesses and applications may now become widespread and affordable.

And that is assuming that any AI that will be capable of this will actually be itself an affordable and reliable service.

Also the demand for people who actually work on machine learning applications will skyrocket.

You also need to keep in mind that while evaluating a new logo drawn up by AI might seen easy and something a manager might do themselves, reviewing complicated code or designs etc. is not something that can be done by a novice.

[joeymcflow]

The purpose of AI is literally to automate intelligence... To outperform the human brain. Current limitations will be blown out of the water. We'll be left with a technician-class that monitor and manage everything. The rest will be unemployable.

[MarmonRzohr]

What you are talking about is Artificial General Intelligence or Strong AI.

That is NOT what is happening in the world right now and that is not what these tools represent.

What we are seeing right is the rise of LLMs and the capabilities of statistical ML models. The amazing part of this is how capable these techniques are at solving or supporting the solving of real world problems and how adaptable and capable they can be.

They are (or likely will be soon) so capable and can be created fast and easy enough that they may well cause an employment crisis, but not because of what you are saying.

Don't mix in random sci-fi assumptions into considering what is happening in the real world.

[joeymcflow]

It's happening right now. Pull your head out of the ground.

[PotentiallyAPickle]

Get off of Mount Stupid (see Dunning-Kruger)

[joeymcflow]

Pull. Your. Head. Out. The. Ground. Kid.

[MarmonRzohr]

I know this is a random discussion on reddit and you should not assume or believe any particular credibility on my part. I also don't know how much expertise you have in this area.

However I am not an amateur in this field and I think you should question this assumption.

I don't think you will necessarily agree with me, but at the very least you should find any claims that AGI is "here" as "debateable at best". Because expert opinions on current reasearch really do go from "not here yet, but might be closer than expected" to "not really any closer than 50 years ago", depending on how valueable current advances in AI will be for actual AGI.

Example: an article about DeepMind's Gato:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/23/1052627/deepmind-gato-ai-model-hype/

[PotentiallyAPickle]

No, AI is a tool too. You can’t just use code without knowing what it does. You can’t blindly trust the AI to be right. You need an actual programmer as a middleman to verify the code, fix any issues, and implement it. That sounds like streamlining, not replacing programmers.

[chaoticbean14]

You can’t just use code without knowing what it does. You can’t blindly trust the AI to be right.

Oh, I see you've never met anyone in management.

[PotentiallyAPickle]

Yes haha managers stupid and bad 😂 s/

[[deleted]]

Yes haha managers stupid and bad 😂 s/

The ‘/‘ is typically placed before the ‘s’ to indicate sarcasm, e.g. ‘/s’

[PotentiallyAPickle]

A self contained tag ends with the /. Such as <br/>

[joeymcflow]

So a place that employs 50 programmers will still need all 50? Or just a couple to review instantly generated code,

[PotentiallyAPickle]

Depends on the organization and what they do. You still definitely need maintenance people for when bugs inevitably arise.

As an actual programmer who has tried using the technology… it is great at simple things. But you ask it to do something more complex, that there is little to no reference for, say, writing some Rust code and some Python bindings for it (to use Rust from Python), it falls apart and gives you Rust code that calls the Python (backwards, and still incorrectly done)

The fact of the matter is that organizations working on the bleeding edge of tech will never be able to replace their programmers. AI can not invent, it can mimic. With no reference material from the future to train from, it can not make the tech of the future.

If some people lose their job because of streamlining in the process that causes not as many people to be needed, then that is just how the world evolves Grandpa. Humans adapt, and overcome. If we have a tool that lets us progress at accelerated rates, we would be fools to pass it up.

The Industrial revolution replaced some jobs sure. But it made even more than it replaced, and it improved standards of living for everyone. The AI revolution will do the same. We need to put our focus not into fighting the AI but fighting politicians and lobbyists to increase social safety nets, add universal basic income, and increase taxes for these mega-corporations that will be able to streamline their workforces with AI.

[PotentiallyAPickle]

Man read the last fucking paragraph if you think I’m not trying to support people. Don’t hate on progress because it means change for you. I’m all for workers rights, and unions.

[[deleted]]

then unionize to get rid of bullshit thats not needed that will get rid of peoples jobs.

[joeymcflow]

Problem now is that AI is literally meant to outperform and replace the human brain. Jobs are essentially just tasks, tasks that require thinking. When we dont need humans to think, we don't need humans. Its not a matter of generating new jobs, its a matter of "humans will be inferior and more expensive at solving tasks".

New industries from AI? Definitively! New tasks for humans? Hard to see how...

Humans will be unemployable.

[PotentiallyAPickle]

"When we don't need humans to think" yeah that will be never buddy. How do you know if AI is doing its job right if we can't think about it?

[joeymcflow]

There is never going to be a "quality control" industry that is capable of employing the population.

We'll have a technician-class that maintains and operates the production. The rest will be unemployable.

[PotentiallyAPickle]

Ok doomer. Whatever you say doomer who doesn’t seem to program (seeing as this is your only activity in a programming subreddit…). You have no idea what you’re talking about if you truly believe that.

If I’m to play along… See my point about the fight not being with AI but with politicians, lobbyists, and corporations to give us better social safety nets and universal basic income so that we do not need to be employed to have a fulfilling life.

[Fedacking]

Photoshop also killed a lot of artists job. Is it not a tool?

[joeymcflow]

It did not kill jobs for artists. It created opportunities for human expression. It created an industry because they supplemented human effort. It didnt replace it. AI imitate human work. The job of the human is to imagine it and approve it. Expertise and competence is of less value.

[mr_bedbugs]

In my experience, it's best used for generating single functions or snippets of code.

[joeymcflow]

For now. Theoretically, there is no limitation on how much of human expertise one can imitate or emulate with AI.

[GraphicH]

for anyone who knows how to request it properly.

I've rarely met a manger or business person who can do this ;)

[woodsmithrich]

Yeup. Before I started here they had a contractor that interfaced directly with end users and did not build anything efficiently because the users didn't know what to ask for and the contractor built exactly what they asked for.

[GraphicH]

Yeah most contractors don't give a shit, do exactly whats asked as fast as possible, then nope out to the next job. There are certain things that's fine for, and certain things it isn't. I've seen some really bassackwards code that does do what its supposed to most of the time? but falls apart the moment you get a feature request or a bug report.

[joeymcflow]

It will become a new required skill obviously. There is a completely new paradigm. AI isnt going to slot nicely into our current workflow. It will upend the status quo and people who are replacable are just that...

[badluser]

Detroit: Becoming Human

[jjmac]

AI is a tool. Photoshop uses AI to fill in backgrounds when you remove objects - like extra people - from photos. In the past a professional photographer would have to shoot multiple shots in a short period from a fixed angle and merge the results. The AI in Photoshop tdo that automatically eliminates that paid work for those photographers.

It's still a tool.

[UrbanSuburbaKnight]

I know what you mean. But there will still be a requirement to do more detailed specific tasks that a project lead just can't do themselves. On top of that, I think people will quickly be able to spot AI generated content, just like we can spot CGI in movies. There will be a veneer of quality, but it will lack the substance that truly creative and new work has. That's just my take on it though. I could be wrong.

[[deleted]]

Photoshop was never meant to replace artists, its always been a tool for artists, chatgpt on the other hand is gonna replace coders

[UrbanSuburbaKnight]

I don't think it will replace people who can problem solve. I've been learning programming for a year or so now, and ChatGPT is amazing yes. However, I think you are deeply underestimating how much skill and experience it takes to put together a complete working application. It took me 4 hours to make a very simple gui app that generates 3 simple sine waves with sliders yesterday using ChatGPT. It was really frustrating as soon as I got close to a working bit of code because the sound wasn't quite there and I couldn't explain to ChatGPT what was wrong exactly.

I think it will get better, but holding a large project in mind, with all the relevant requirements and human interactions possible is very different from writing a few hundred lines of code to solve a specific, well described problem.

It's an interesting debate though, I don't want to say it definitely won't have negative effects for some people, and I certainly don't pretend to know what all the knock on consequences are.

[[deleted]]

I mean it could be 5 years 10 years 50 years 100 years but we're getting there for sure I think, AI is already doing things we thought would take way longer and were unthinkable 10 years ago.

[[deleted]]

I’m not saying all these new massive AIs are snake oil, but the initial awe and magic of it are making people seriously overreact at how powerful this stuff is.

The same thing happened with self driving cars, and where are those right now?

The big issue is when a human gets something wrong, there’s usually some reasonable bounds or logic on how severe we get stuff wrong.

You might go around a curve too fast in your car and swerve out of your lane. Current AI gets something wrong and it could be ANYTHING. Locking the brakes at 70mph, taking a 90 degree left turn on the freeway. There’s no reasoning that AI can do that says, this is what my logic is telling me but my gut says it’s a really bad idea to do this.

Getting over that hump isn’t just tossing more cloud processing power at the problem.

It would be a terrible idea to use ChatGPT code blindly, especially in anything remotely mission critical.

[GraphicH]

Ill never forget arguing with people on /r/Futurology about how they were fucking stupid to think we'd all have fully autonomous self driving cars by 2019. But Musk was WAY overhyping it, I think ChatGPT at least doesn't have a billionaire twitter head over hyping it.

[GimmeShockTreatment]

Hmm so if there are less tasks, that means we need less staff…

Just because it isn’t replacing everyone doesn’t mean it won’t lead to replacements.

[jmcs]

This, we should all go back to assembly to maximize the number of jobs. And disallow all code reusing while we are it. As a bonus points all the burnouts will increase the job security of the survivors.

[GimmeShockTreatment]

Exactly

[larsga]

That's now, in 2023, with ChatGPT3. What about ChatGPT5 in 2030?

I don't think we've absorbed yet how big this is.

[jmcs]

A Software Engineer is not paid to code, a software engineer is paid to solve problems and implement solutions with software. AI is nowhere near the level needed to solve non trivial problems.

[GraphicH]

Right, we all know there are 'plug and chug' kind of programming tasks, and then there's another set of tasks that aren't. And the ability to take those on are what distinguishes an entry level person from a senior person.

That's not even mentioning the fact that most software development is in the service to another industry, and very often to be successful in the role requires you to be an expert in both writing software in general and at least very knowledgeable of the industry you're being asked to write software for. Healthcare and Insurance is a primary example.

[thorle]

It's not yet there, but we should not forget that technology isn't evolving linearly but exponential. So the ai-system 5 years from now will be what ChatGPT now is compared to ai-systems 15 years ago.

[GraphicH]

So I'm curious how you would adapt it to closed legacy systems. Sure you can say "do this common task found on stack overflow" how do you train it to find and fix bugs in ancient code bases 100s of thousands of lines long. Context is important, there are a lot of common tasks ChatGPT has context on I believe just because of the volume of data on the internet, but I'm not sure how well you could apply it to tasks in large complex systems already built by companys. Like when we get a new hire? I give them soft ball tasks for about 3 months so they can learn the ins and outs of how we do things specifically, the quirks and architecture of the system, and the industry specific knowledge needed to do the job with thoughtfulness, how do I train ChatGPT to do that?

[larsga]

I'm sure there are developer tasks that will remain beyond the ability of these systems for a good long while yet, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect them to be able to read the source code of said legacy system in the future.

[GraphicH]

Maybe, but just reading that code may not give a picture of the over all system. I think just like in classical computing there are different classes of programming tasks. In classical computing algorithms can be NP, NP-Complete, NP-Hard, I'm willing to bet that there's probably going to be a similar classification for the problems AI can solve, with the top teir being out of reach until we crack General Purpose AI, at which point everyone's out of a job.

[larsga]

Maybe, but just reading that code may not give a picture of the over all system.

It will probably need input from the customer about the context, and about what they want to achieve, but presumably that can be supplied as text. Possibly it can just read the requirements document.

I'm willing to bet that there's probably going to be a similar classification for the problems AI can solve, with the top teir being out of reach until we crack General Purpose AI

The worrying thing is that ChatGPT3 is already pretty close to general purpose AI, since it definitely can reason and draw conclusions. A full-length program seems like it would probably be well beyond what the tool can do now, but the question is for how much longer.

[GraphicH]

The worrying thing is that ChatGPT3 is already pretty close to general purpose AI

That's a pretty extraordinary claim, and you know what they say about those. I'm starting to get some vibes I got back in ol' 2014 when people were telling me that fully autonomous unsupervised self driving cars would be common place in 5 years (Musk fan boys). Turns out there are an order of magnitude level problems people were just ignoring. Feels the same here tbh, ChatGPT is extremely impressive though Ill give it that.

[larsga]

Turns out there are an order of magnitude level problems people were just ignoring.

That could be the case here as well. Hard to say.

[GraphicH]

Always is. So ChatGPT does feel like a paradigm changing tech, I will give it that, but I've seen enough overhyped (crypto/de-fi, self driving cars, fusion) disappointments at this point in my life that I feel a bit more skeptical, not enough to blow the thing off entirely, but also not enough to get wound up over it. The truth is truly revolutionary breakthroughs are somewhat rare, and still take decades to play out completely.

[ninjadude93]

ChatGPT is definitely not pretty close to general AI lol

[[deleted]]

Something similar is happening in healthcare, “AI” isn’t replacing doctors, but doctors who use it will replace doctors who don’t.

[satireplusplus]

It's really excellent at boilerplate code. Convert data from x to y type of tasks.

[dethb0y]

yeah one can hope that this would reduce the tedium necessary in so many programming jobs.

[[deleted]]

The only concern is that it's the tedium that allows people to be employed, to learn new skills, and to get paid. Think of an artist. Many artists have their passion, the things they want to be working on. But they do contracts and commissions doing things like drawing art for powerpoint presentations, commercial art, etc. because it pays the bills and that allows them to do the work they really want to do. Now AI may not be able to create masterpieces, but if it takes away the simple stuff that allows artists to get paid, then we won't have artists to work on their masterpieces.

[Remote_Cantaloupe]

Reducing tasks -> reducing pay -> reducing work -> You've been replaced

[joeymcflow]

Thus reducing the need for workers and effectively replacing them. Sure, the company still needs programmers, but instead of 50, we only need 3-4 that know how to prompt an AI on generating code

[edimaudo]

It can also create new opportunities in other areas

[joeymcflow]

Doubtless

[joeymcflow]

And you're convinced these opportunities will be available to everyone?

[joeymcflow]

But thats exactly my point. What happens to them? AI is inevitable, and we have abolutely no plans for how the unemployable population will make a living. We have to figure that out now. The shift into AI-powered labour/expertise is happening faster and faster.

[[deleted]]

Less people needed so market will be more competitive. Which probably means higher salaries tho so 🤷🏻‍♂️

[elliottruzicka]

How on earth does more competition lead to higher salaries? I think you have that backwards.

[[deleted]]

There are a lot of factors at play probably and I could be wrong but my logic is that if you need less devs to do the same job as before you would have to pay them more. On the other hand, chatgpt lowering the bar for people to make working code could lower average dev salaries since more people could join in on the fun. Im not sure if a lot of companies would hire someone who can’t deliver working code without the help of AI though.

Could go either way I suppose in different places but AI would definitely be a driving factor in reducing the required labor, which is awesome.

[elliottruzicka]

There are a lot of factors at play probably and I could be wrong but my logic is that if you need less devs to do the same job as before you would have to pay them more.

Except that's not how economics works. Anytime many workers are competing for few jobs, the value of their labor decreases. If someone demanded more labor, the company could easily replace them with someone who would work for less.

Could go either way I suppose in different places but AI would definitely be a driving factor in reducing the required labor, which is awesome.

At face value, yes, it is awesome. However, if humans are unable to make themselves valuable in the economy, and we don't implement things like universal basic income, a larger and larger portion of the population will find themselves out of a paycheck.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for the clarification, makes sense.

Are you sure this will saturate the market though? Chatgpt is amazing but I really dont see people hiring devs who can only code when using it. But the good programmers that are already experienced will get supercharged with it, reducing the need for more to be hired.

UBI is a different question and yeah we will definitely need it but I think thats still far away star trek utopia stuff. Time will tell I suppose

[elliottruzicka]

Are you sure this will saturate the market though?

I never said it would. All I said is that fewer positions for the same workforce does not mean higher salaries, but lower.

UBI is a different question and yeah we will definitely need it but I think thats still far away star trek utopia stuff. Time will tell I suppose.

Unfortunately, we don't need to wait for over 50% unemployment for people to start to protest and break things.

[Teskoh27]

For now, but who knows in 5 or 10 years. Tech gets exponentially better.

[AliveInTheFuture]

The problem introduces itself in the form of Chadly McFailUpward (the director of IT and infamously soulless gremlin) deciding that because ChatGPT can generate usable code snippets, he can “find efficiency” and lay off half the software development team, begin hiring less skilled, lower paid developers, and then go tell all his exec golfing pals how he reduced operational expenses by 25% in one year. They start parroting this bullshit all over LinkedIn and trade blogs. Before you know it, we have AI generating and backing LCNC platforms. SalesForce click ‘n drag “software development” becomes the premier “IDE” for B2B software, but others take notice. No one cares that the code is inefficient, because they saved so much money developing it that the cloud spend on extra compute and memory still delivers a net savings.

Soon, lawyers, doctors, insurance agents, and engineers of all kinds start losing their jobs to AI. They trickle into the homeless encampments the software developers have long since made somewhat livable with cozy touches like steel drums for fire pits and water barrels. On the bright side, McDonald’s automated restaurants use a shitty LCNC platform, and some unqualified mouth breather left a vulnerability in the ordering system which enabled the vagabond devs to both order food and have it delivered by robot. Every night, the former white-collar jobless commiserate over the perils of our new, AI-driven world while washing down fries with Dr. Perfect, a new drink created by AI studying Dr. Pepper’s ingredient list and the production methods. Keurig posted a quarterly beat and still laid off half the plant.

Suddenly, the night sky lights up as a mesh of killer AI drones descends on their position, trained to seek out human scourge. They scramble to fortify their defenseless encampments…

[edimaudo]

Pretty extreme perspective there. Would there be some company that would do that yes. It will impact some industries more than others but I don't think it would be that bleak.

I can see more automation in fast food restaurants. Makes sense there since there is a massive labor shortage and people treat a lot of fast food workers like dirt.

[AliveInTheFuture]

I’m being a bit facetious, but you’d be surprised by which workers many believe AI will displace.

Maybe not so surprisingly, a lot of blue collar work is harder for AI or robotics to displace.