Ask HN: I feel like I've lost my identity due to AI
I am a self taught software developer. I was previously an electrical engineer. For the past 10 years I’ve spent almost all my spare time reading and learning and lifting weights - software, electrical engineering, reading, and creating what I thought were novel projects - mostly in the software domain. For the longest time I’ve only been interested in ideas that haven’t really been done before, maybe that’s because I have adhd? But lots of the ideas I pursue and build are relatively novel or unique in some way, not derivative. Anyway, then LLMs happened. Now any idiot can just ask an AI for ideas or to think for them, or to build software for them in a single shot. Initially I was really excited by LLMs because I thought great, something to bounce ideas off. Now LLMs have far surpassed any idea I could possibly have. Not only that, but I’m a builder and I have always built things and launched projects to the world. Now my projects are drowning in a sea of noise. I’m contributing to the noise. I don’t even hand program anymore, because the llm can do it all better than me. I can architect better, but soon that will disappear too. I don’t mean to be morbid, but I feel like I don’t have much to live for anymore. I’m young (late 20s), I’m semi-disabled, and AI is affecting my career. I see the writing on the wall. Jobs are being heavily affected, layoffs constantly, restructures, the works. Before AI I had a way to stand out amongst the crowd. I had industry awards, global recognition to a certain degree, successful business exits, and strong programming skills. AI is advancing so rapidly that I think even system architects are fucked. So, can’t do physical jobs due to semi disability and pretty soon won’t be able to do office work because - any idiot can do office work now. I’m pretty checked out, and have basically lost passion for everything. I’ve been thinking about the phrase “chop wood, carry water” or whatever it is, and I’d like to do that. But that doesn’t pay the bills.
Discussion Highlights (8 comments)
setnone
the greater equalizer has arrived, lost passion is still up for an individual but with paying the bills i naively expect some economic breakthrough from humans+ai
danshipt
I would use that anger to still work for the industry. You still can get a job. Use AI to work minimally and perhaps get another job (part time?) and take advantage of AI as well to work minimally. Earn two paychecks (not big ones, but combined, good enough) and put your passion on side projects. Fuck companies
NotParth11
i really hate ai, it has made everything so much more difficult. But whenever i think about this, i feel like i'm complaining .
aristofun
With all due respect if you consider ideas that llm gives you back as “novel” or same/better quality than your own, then your own were not novel and not great to begin with. Therefore you didn’t really loose nor gain anything except a point of view. Which is arbitrary in this case.
brand_edge
I personally believe that your industry award and global recognition will go a long way. I had been working with AI as a founder, and I see that there is no human inside, and it just goes in so many different directions. Your knowledge, your skills will be always valuable. Don't be afraid of the layoffs. You will always stand out.
sph
I posted this a few days ago that didn't get much traction before it got heavily downranked; this place is very pro-AI, and the vast majority just don't care: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48857085 I am more or less in your same situation, but I've taken the radical decision never to use LLMs for anything at all. The identity as a software engineer has gone and will never return, but my skills have not suffered one second. In fact, I enjoy doing things like we've always done and exercising my brain, becoming wiser and more knowledgeable than I've ever been. Will this make me unhireable? I'd rather do any other job that have LLMs forced upon me. Sorry you're feeling like that. There are dozens of us. You say you are self-taught like I am, we have a better-than-average skill in learning, don't waste it trying to dumb yourself down to an idiot savant.
bjourne
Bruh, software development isn't like boxing where your body reaches its pinnacle at 25. Self taught at < 30 you probably don't even know how little you know. You can either have your tantrum about the bots or you can continue honing your coding skills. For example, by getting in touch with premier free software projects. Many of them reject LLM-generated commits outright. For very good reasons.
kypro
If it's any consolation, I suspect people worrying about job loses and a loss of meaning will soon realise these are minor concerns. What people always struggle to model with AI are the step functions that occur in capabilities as new algorithmic advancements are made. Historically those come maybe every ~5-10 years, although the pace has dramatically increase in the last decade and last 5 years. Most people right now are plotting a linear improvement over the several years as models get bigger, harnesses become more complex and capable, more people adopt AI for efficiency, etc. Some are adding small exponents, but most are fundamentally modelling wrong. What's more likely to happen is that in a few months someone at some AI lab will leak that they've made a breakthrough internally. Then another leak will come, and another. We'll know something big is going on because we'll see strange things happening within governments, then FOOM. We're likely now one more step function away from something that's not just capable of taking your job as an intelligent and knowledgeable human, but surpasses your ability so significantly that you can't even comprehend what's happening around you. This job concern is really just a concern perhaps of the next year, or maybe at a stretch, a few years. It's not the purposelessness or job-loss that should have you concerned, but the pandoras box that we're opening. Once that box is opened every problem bottlenecked by intelligence is solvable practically over night, and therefore the way the society will look in a decade is almost impossible to imagine. The problem of how to cure cancer is solved, but the problem of how to kill everyone with a super virus is too. The problem of how to cure alzheimers is solved, but so is the problem of how to hack the human neural activity is too. I genuinely do not understand how people still don't see what's coming, but I try to remind myself that these are the good problems and we should enjoy this for as long as it lasts.