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Oh yes. Its just that "roler of those prompt dice" is Not quite as snappy. Btw Am i a Google search engineer because i tried a dozen different variations? No. On a list, somewhere, is what i am.

Oh absolutely, 100%

"Cajoling the stupid computer into doing what the client wants" is what I do for a living, sir

I majored in skipping the IRS hold queue.

designed by those who needed a letmegooglethatforyou link in the first place

if it's anything, it's just... editing. you're doing editing.

am i an engineer? not really, i’m more of a scientist, i mostly focus on prompt theory

So many folks I have respected have sold out to the “prompt engineer” thing. It’s like a zombie movie. One by one they drop.

This is fundamentally the same thing as programming, except you need to learn a lot less about how to phrase things so the computer understands them.

Yup. It’s grift++

“Prompt engineering” is just a pathetic attempt by people lacking proper skills to look like they have one in seeming to make the mysterious machine they’re too dumb to understand do their shamanic bidding.

got laid off last month. 20+ years a web dev. 90% of jobs have ai in title, naw… time for a new career lol

I remember the days when we called it "Google Fu" when you knew exactly what phrase or keywords to search for in Google to get the results you needed. It was like magic. Google's advertising algorithms and AI have since ruined this completely.

people aren't taking 'slot jockey' as a serious career

the fact that AI robots are simultaneously bringing creativity and art and code to the talentless but also you need a specialist to get the robot to do it correctly feels like a contradiction that yet again, we are not allowed to point out.

This guy over on Mastodon nailed it, IMO:

As a forensic engineer I had more than one phone call that said "Head to this town, now. We will get you the address" Structural systems sometimes malfunction too.

Niiiiiice, So now that big Box stores and Amazon have killed all the small businesses around here they are going to en-shittify their Services. Gonna call myself an Amazon prompt engineer when the correct item arrives. Or when like 67% of the order is correct.

Lol when the aws backend is all vibe coders. Good thing we outsourced most of the programming, the rest of the world can save us.

I seem to remember the articles from like 18 months ago about prompt graphic designers failing because 1) they don't understand composition etc so they can't tell when the slop is appropriate and 2) due to the random nature, they can't tweak the work or incorporate feedback. This should be old news

The best part is that "prompt engineering" is a subset of communications, or writing, which proponents of the former probably scoff at getting a degree in

Something like 90% of “prompt engineers” are English majors getting some great mileage on being able to clearly state goals or intention. I’m happy for them.

It’s one of those fields where if you actually became an expert you would realize the most ethical way to use your expertise would be to warn people not to waste their time and money studying this

It's so weird. When Google exploded on the Internet I don't remember people designating themselves as Search Engineers.