Post

It’s very cool. It certainly adds a ton of value to the world that people can do this for themselves. In theory it adds a bunch of value to GDP creates a big consumer surplus. But it doesn’t translate to money in anyone’s pockets.

For every guy who has "made it" from this new paradigm, there's 10+ who lost their job. After I lost my job of 3 years in devops after 8 years in support, I became a helpdesk manager and when I hired for a *temp help desk entry* I got at least 10 apps from former devs with 15+ years in the field.

The disconnect I think is that the form is now amenable to being completed so much faster than the substance. The amount of “I vibed up this cool player comparison dashboard” “Ok what data are you using for the comps?” “Oh that’s just dummy data for the demo, not my job for the rest” I’ve seen…

definitely not the norm. I was incredibly fortunate to find a company that Noticed Things.

Based on talking to friends in various industries, that's entirely true, but moreover, management seems willing to literally stake the existence of their company on a technology they don't understand, so they won't be "left out". Insisting this stuff be integrated with everything.

Teach? All kinds of places need teachers. The pay starts pretty low, but gets better, and the insurance is usually pretty good. I mean, even with an emergency license, you do still have to get certified, and then get a master’s, and your job is a political football, and… wait, nevermind. This sucks.

Learn to subsistence farm?

I’m hearing “the trades” a lot. World will always need plumbers, etc

It's "learn a trade".

"Learn to weld" only works when people are planning big projects everywhere, but nobody knows what the price of steel will be next week. I know people trying to get started in metalworking and there isn't a ton of jobs rn

We absolutely do not, because of the financialization. Exchange value is totally unmoored from anything but narratives and shady backstops, private equity is destroying every industry, journalism is totally bought in to "CEO says". There's a ton of work that needs doing and no jobs.

And half of all professional govt and science jobs simultaneously cratered because woke And we started an oil crisis And we launched tariffs Like you couldn’t plan a national demolition this good if you tried

I see some people trying to claim the new answer to “I can’t find a job” is “healthcare,” but you can tell their heart isn’t really in it.

Yes, it's "learn to build data centers"

I’m guessing it’ll be endless “learn to blue collar trade” and programs in schools to host more of these programs which never develop as they run into obvious cost and logistics issues.

There is definitely a "learn to vibe-code" assumption getting baked right now

I feel *extremely* lucky that I landed a tech job at a not-tech-but-tech-adjacent company where the boom-bust cycles in FAANG-world have largely passed me by. But I’d be lying if I said anything feels safe, much less has a bright future. The bolt’s busted loose from the lever.

"Learn to kiss ass" works in all times and places, but if it doesn't come naturally to you, it's a hell of a slog trying to learn it.

Yet another reason the AI companies are facing such backlash They’re trying to pitch us on.a jobless society

"Learn to code" was overrated even before this current tech job downturn. What it did was to make a bunch of "boot camp" companies very well off, with limited upside for the students. To make a living as a software developer, you need to know how to translate requirements into algorithm.

Currently I feel like my future (late Millennial with educational neglect and no continuous career) is just Entry Level Hell at best unless something drastically changes. I don't have any illusions this system would ever find me valuable.

I do regularly encourage people to explore building trades, unionized if possible, but that's not something with infinite capacity (among other problems such as requisite physical fitness)

Most companies are just using GenAI to slash headcount, penny counting short term saving, without realizing they're accumulating tech debts at exponential rate and increasingly shipping half-baked products. Or maybe management know but don't care, since they all have short-timer mindset.

Why pay people for Robot use? The point of the Robot is it replaces people!

I see a lot of software getting better, but I haven’t seen anything I want to give *my* money to. Anything I want I can just build myself or find someone giving it away for free.

It’s more the mythology of it all.

(they're probably not doing great, the scammer's life is often subsistence work, but scamming has very clearly gotten easier!)

And then what do we do in 20 years when those people are retiring and no one has been trained because there were no entry-level jobs for a generation? Good times, nice thoughts.

marketing is much harder task than development in like 99% of cases and that’s not gonna change bc you can’t vibe marketing success

IMO the opportunity has shifted from a national one with VC backing to a regional one finding small to medium businesses that have processes to improve.

Yeah sure, John Medianvoter can't cash out massively off AI hype, but there absolutely are people who are benefitting from the social upheaval and from their ability to come out on top in what's coming next. I am one of those people. I am trying to help others do so as well!

It certainly makes my job easier as a teacher, all my bs metawork tasks, leveling texts to different lexile levels, creating multiple versions of tests, the loads of narrative materials I need for gamification It's like having a C level teaching assistant which was never going to happen otherwise

And I have co-workers that successfully use it for science. Do they make money? No. But they do make lil shiny apps and stuff so other people can visualize their data more easily.

Nope lol who has money to spend on the things I'm making? Not a soul because they've all been laid off by aforementioned companies

Even for huge corporations, are they actually saving more money than they spend on the tokens? They don't seem to be doing anything that would bring in billions in new revenue with AI.

I know a few people who have startups with like....let's say less than 10? employees and a vibe-coded app or service. Any more than that and they're having to pay real engineers to fix it. This stuff seems fine for home or personal use but the minute you need customer data it's like 🤷‍♀️