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#1

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - October 14, 2025, 06:43:18 PM

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).

#2

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - October 12, 2025, 10:43:21 PM

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.

#3

General Discussion / Re: Happy Thanksgiving, Everyo...

Last post by Jason - October 12, 2025, 08:06:41 PM

Thanks. Bill! I hope you have/had a good one, too.

#4

General Discussion / Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Last post by ssfc72 - October 12, 2025, 08:27:11 AM

I hope everyone has an enjoyable Holiday Thanksgiving!

#5

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by BusterE - October 09, 2025, 10:19:59 PM

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/

#6

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - October 07, 2025, 03:20:54 AM

Damn, I didn't mean to write an essay before. But with university, I have no time to edit my verbiage. I have to save that for my assignments!

#7

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - October 07, 2025, 03:19:25 AM

3. The employment available will often be low pay, and the rich will continue to get richer by moving money about. So we will devolve into a Middle Ages social structure, with an extremely rich and small segment, and a large group with little money.

So Buster's prediction is fewer, larger, and more powerful companies, more unemployment, and a pyramid social structure in society. The storms, droughts and fires are only the aperitif.

Did you become an overnight socialist, Buster? It sounds suspiciously like you think capitalism might be a bad thing. Careful, you might end up on a watchlist! Anyway, I think we're already there and have been for some time regarding the pyramid structure and the gap between rich and poor. The rich are obscenely rich, and they are making it off the backs of the poor.

I agree with most of what you said regarding jobs, etc. But I disagree with the part about coding, at least in the near future. Remember that AI is an LLM (large language model). The input it gets comes from freely accessible services online. And there are examples of bad code, too. I'm not sure commercial companies are posting their source code.

And as any programmer knows, the bulk of coding is spent on fixing bugs. And oh boy, is AI going to introduce a lot of bugs. Not necessarily because of mistakes, but because it's hard to explain software in words. And developers, especially in making code accessible online, are notorious for not commenting well, which is critical in debugging code or updating it years later. If AI copies that, it will produce code that is very hard to debug, as it will pantomime that behaviour.

And harder yet is to develop good user interfaces for humans. AI isn't going to understand how humans perceive simplicity and what is easy to us.

Of course, it might be good at finding them, too. But unless they can upload the knowledge of programmers themselves, I don't see AI replacing developers anytime soon. Simple programs, sure. But try using an LLM to develop an office suite or an antivirus, and you're going to quickly discover its limits.

I'm not saying it won't happen eventually, but I think we're decades away from that.

I think part of the confusion about what AI can do is that people don't understand that AI isn't "thinking". AI is like autotext on phones, on steroids. It understands how words, sentences and paragraphs are put together. And it uses neural networks to learn more. It doesn't understand what any of it means. And it is prone to "hallucinations," which is something humans can account for in many fields. But not in coding.

If we think that sentience is an emergent property of language, then we may be in big trouble. But I think it's the other way around based on what I've read.

When I use AI for answers, I'm sure to be polite, though. When we have the robot uprising, I  want it to remember that I'm one of the good guys.

#8

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - October 07, 2025, 02:56:00 AM

On the day I posted that Bill, I got three emails from the bank. They are trying to get me to do digital banking rather than going to the bank. I do some banking on the Internet, but I like a human's ability to help me if there is a difficulty. I do not use my phone to bank. For large transactions of any sort I have an advisor who I can visit or phone. But I do not use my phone for digital banking.

Do you mean online banking? I don't know what digital banking is. While I agree that banks shouldn't be requiring their customers to use online banking, I'm confused about you saying you like to have an advisor you can phone. You won't lose that with online banking. You can still get support. You can still visit a branch. Am I missing something?

I don't imagine branches in cities will close, although they have in rural areas and small towns. But businesses will still need to do their nightly cash deposits, and they will expect staff to be there to negotiate loans. I suppose the latter can technically be moved online, but banks lending money (and mortgages obviously) is their bread and butter. The first bank to do that in a city like ours will immediately start losing business, so none of them are going to do that anytime soon.

#9

Support / Re: Can I have one computer on...

Last post by Jason - October 07, 2025, 02:43:59 AM

If the goal is to prevent its Internet access but still allow location communication on the network you can simply remove its default gateway. This will only allow it to communicate with IP addresses on the same IP subnet.

I didn't know that, Scott. Thanks for this tidbit.

#10

Support / Re: Can I have one computer on...

Last post by buster - October 05, 2025, 06:52:15 PM

Thanks again Scott and Bill, and for your support for an ancient, Jason.

Have made a few phone call and done a bit of poking about on the Internet and found out a few surprising things.

1. As far as I can see, the virus program will probably continue to work with Win10. But of course this doesn't cover flaws in Win10's software which will not be updated.

2. However, one computer guy in Ottawa I know thinks there will be a general update to Win10 software sometime because so many businesses around the world are still using it. Millions? Billions? I'm not betting on it, but it does seem possible.

3. A couple of places on the Internet reminded readers that many used Win 7 for ages without problems because most attacks to a computer are caused by user error, such as clicking on an email attachment. I got this as well from a computer repair person.

4. The most used apps on your computer, say Thunderbird or Firefox, will continue to receive updates.

So there may not be a rush if you mostly stay off the Internet, avoid clicking randomly, and being the most unusual person on the planet, a rational human being.