Simple Known Dangers with AI, and Possible Future Dangers Too.

[Jason]

The process of coding by non-humans is complex but interesting.If you wish to peek into the near future, or our attempts to predict the future (always iffy), you could read this:

https://sdh.global/blog/ai-ml/will-ai-replace-software-engineers-heres-what-the-data-really-shows/

Thanks for sharing. Interesting article. I agree that predictions are usually iffy. And there are some assertions at the beginning of the article that aren't evidentially strong:

Nearly 30% of 550 surveyed software developers already believe their development work will be replaced by artificial intelligence within the foreseeable future.

That's a pretty small sample. And it's basically a poll. Who are these developers? What kind of code do they develop? Is AI in the workplace? What do they know about AI that they didn't glean from mainstream media? So many questions.

Current job market indicators reflect this emerging reality. IT sector unemployment spiked from 3.9% to 5.7% in a single month, surpassing the US national average of 4% as of January 2024.

One month? Really? How does that compare to unemployment in other sectors? The US is experiencing an economic slowdown. The IT sector includes much more than software developers. Is the software development sub-category experiencing similar numbers?

A comprehensive survey of 9,000 software engineers revealed that 90% consider job hunting significantly more challenging now compared to 2020.

This could mean something, but it could still be the economic slowdown. Many of the largest companies are shedding employees who used to do simple tasks or using AI as the first line of tech support.

Much of the article confirms what I said, particularly that AI-produced code has a large error rate (30%). Developers will have to oversee the code that AI produces. What will likely happen, and is happening, is that developers will use AI to assist in their work. The author hit that on the nose. Maybe in time, AI will replace developers, which will be sad since it's such a well-paying job.

As you suggest, predictions are iffy. Let's lay down our bets, and if we're still around, then the winner can collect. 

Thanks for sharing, Buster. It was an interesting article.

[Jason]

Today's Examiner had a  relevant article.

It makes me think I made a good choice in pursuing my degree in Health Science rather than Computer Science. There seems to be a glut of software developers. And employers using AI to screen resumes and cover letters is disquieting. It must be hard for your resume to be looked at if you don't know the exact keywords to get past the AI (there are some, apparently).

[buster]

Jason once commented on the error of calling AI intelligent. It's stupidity has shown up quite a bit on my information searches lately, and these are the sorts of things I don't remember being wrong before, at least so often. And I always try to  avoid any click that will include AI in anything I do on a computer. (Human to the bitter end.)

Example one on Google: I asked the simple question 'When will such and such a program release series 3?' The surprising answer was that this program would release series two in August, which helped me not at all because I'd watched series two in the spring already. A notice said the answer was generated by AI.

Example two, also on Google: There are two shows released a month apart in 2023 called The Diplomat. My searches kept going to the US Netfix series. So I typed "reviews for the diplomat BBC British series". That seems pretty clear to me, but it insisted on taking me to reviews of the US production.

I can't remember Google being that stupid. Maybe there is a switch that insists on using AI to formulate answers rather than some of the older algorithms that took you to the places that matched the limited clues given.

But at least with AI we don't have to wait as long for errors as we do with humans. That's one good thing.

[buster]

I was so impressed by the post that I did some searches and found this:

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/cringe-worth-google-ai-overviews

[buster]

This solution seems to work but not always. I want to get rid of Googles starting with an AI Summary, where information can be gleaned by AI from unreliable sources.

So at the end of my search entry I put (space) -noai

General this jumps right past the summary into several pages found by the search engine.