[hcwilk]

I just graduated college, and this was a major blow. I studied Mechanical Engineering and went into Sales Engineering because cause I love technology and people, but articles like this do nothing but make me dread the future.

I have no idea what to specialize in, what skills I should master, or where I should be spending my time to build a successful career.

Seems like we’re headed toward a world where you automate someone else’s job or be automated yourself.

[creer]

You are going through your studies just as a (potentially major) new class of tools is appearing. It's not the first time in history - although with more hype this time: computing, personal computing, globalisation, smart phones, chinese engineering... I'd suggest (1) you still need to understand your field, (2) you might as well try and figure out where this new class of tools is useful for your field. Otherwise... (3) carry on.

It's not encouraging from the point of view of studying hard but the evolution of work the past 40 years seems to show that your field probably won't be your field quite exactly in just a few years. Not because your field will have been made irrelevant but because you will have moved on. Most likely that will be fine, you will learn more as you go, hopefully moving from one relevant job to the next very different but still relevant job. Or straight out of school you will work in very multi-disciplinary jobs anyway where it will seem not much of what you studied matters (it will but not in obvious ways.)

Certainly if you were headed into a very specific job which seems obviously automatable right now (as opposed to one where the tools will be useful), don't do THAT. Like, don't train as a typist as the core of your job in the middle of the personal computer revolution, or don't specialize in hand-drawing IC layouts in the middle of the CAD revolution unless you have a very specific plan (court reporting? DRAM?)

[jart]

Yes but it’s different this time. LLMs are a general solution to the automation of anything that can be controlled by a computer. You can’t just move from drawing ICs to CAD, because the AI can do that too. AI can write code. It can do management. It can even do diplomacy. What it can’t do on its own are the things computers can’t control yet. It has also shown little interest so far in jockying for social status. The AI labs are trying their hardest to at least keep the politics around for humans to do, so you have that to look forward to.

[fruit_snack]

This reply irked me a bit because it clearly comes from a software engineer’s point of view and seems to miss a key equivalence between software & physical engineering.

Yes a new tool is coming out and will be exponentially improving.

Yes the nature of work will be different in 20 years.

But don’t you still need to understand the underlying concepts to make valid connections between the systems you’re using and drive the field (or your company) forward?

Or from another view, don’t we (humanity) need people who are willing to do this? Shouldn’t there be a valid way for them to be successful in that pursuit?

[keenmaster]

You have so much time to figure things out. The average person in this thread is probably 1.5-2x your age. I wouldn’t stress too much. AI is an amazing tool. Just use it to make hay while the sun shines, and if it puts you out of work and automates away all other alternatives, then you’ll be witnessing the greatest economic shift in human history. Productivity will become easier than ever, before it becomes automatic and boundless. I’m not cynical enough to believe the average person won’t benefit, much less educated people in STEM like you.

[marricks]

Back in high school I worked with some pleasant man in his 50's who was a cashier. Eventually we got to talking about jobs and it turns out he was typist (something like that) for most of his life than computers came along and now he makes close to minimum wage.

Most of the blacksmiths in the 19th century drank themselves to death after the industrial revolution. the US culture isn't one of care... Point is, it's reasonable to be sad and afraid of change, and think carefully about what to specialize in.

That said... we're at the point of diminishing returns in LLM, so I doubt any very technical jobs are being lost soon. [1]

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/20/ai-scaling-laws-are-showin...

[intuitionist]

> if it puts you out of work and automates away all other alternatives, then you’ll be witnessing the greatest economic shift in human history.

This would mean the final victory of capital over labor. The 0.01% of people who own the machines that put everyone out of work will no longer have use for the rest of humanity, and they will most likely be liquidated.

[raydev]

> if it puts you out of work and automates away all other alternatives, then you’ll be witnessing the greatest economic shift in human history

This is my view but with a less positive spin: you are not going to be the only person whose livelihood will be destroyed. It's going to be bad for a lot of people.

So at least you'll have a lot of company.

[danenania]

Exactly. Put one foot in front of the other. No one knows what’s going to happen.

Even if our civilization transforms into an AI robotic utopia, it’s not going to do so overnight. We’re the ones who get to build the infrastructure that underpins it all.

[infinite-hugs]

Hey man,

I hear you, I’m not that much older but I graduated in 2011. I also studied industrial design. At that time the big wave was the transition to an app based everything and UX design suddenly became the most in demand design skill. Most of my friends switched gears and careers to digital design for the money. I stuck to what I was interested in though which was sustainability and design and ultimately I’m very happy with where I ended up (circular economy) but it was an awkward ~10 years as I explored learning all kinds of tools and ways applying my skills. It also was very tough to find the right full time job because product design (which has come to really mean digital product design) supplanted industrial design roles and made it hard to find something of value that resonated with me.

One of the things that guided me and still does is thinking about what types of problems need to be solved? From my perspective everything should ladder up to that if you want to have an impact. Even if you don’t keep learning and exploring until you find something that lights you up on the inside. We are not only one thing we can all wear many hats.

Saying that, we’re living through a paradigm shift of tremendous magnitude that’s altering our whole world. There will always be change though. My two cents is to focus on what draws your attention and energy and give yourself permission to say no to everything else.

AI is an incredible tool, learn how to use it and try to grow with the times. Good luck and stay creative :) Hope something in there helps, but having a positive mindset is critical. If you’re curious about the circular economy happy to share what I know - I think it’s the future.

[tripletao]

I feel like many people are reacting to the string "AGI" in the benchmark name, and not to the actual result. The tasks in question are to color squares in a grid, maintaining the geometric pattern of the examples.

Unlike most other benchmarks where LLMs have shown large advances (in law, medicine, etc.), this benchmark isn't directly related to any practically useful task. Rather, the benchmark is notable because it's particularly easy for untrained humans, but particularly hard for LLMs; though that difficulty is perhaps not surprising, since LLMs are trained on mostly text and this is geometric. An ensemble of non-LLM solutions already outperformed the average Mechanical Turk worker. This is a big improvement in the best LLM solution; but this might also be the first time an LLM has been tuned specifically for these tasks, so this might be Goodhart's Law.

It's a significant result, but I don't get the mania. It feels like Altman has expertly transformed general societal anxiety into specific anxiety that one's job will be replaced by an LLM. That transforms into a feeling that LLMs are powerful, which he then transforms into money. That was strongest back in 2023, but had weakened since then; but in this comment section it's back in full force.

For clarity, I don't question that many jobs will be replaced by LLMs. I just don't see a qualitative difference from all the jobs already replaced by computers, steam engines, horse-drawn plows, etc. A medieval peasant brought to the present would probably be just as despondent when he learned that almost all the farming jobs are gone; but we don't miss them.

[esafak]

I think you did not watch the full video. The model performs at PhD level on maths questions, and expert level at coding.

[conception]

I feel like more likely a lot of jobs (CS and otherwise ) are going to go the way of photography. Your average person now can take amazing photos but you’re still going to use a photographer when it really matters and they will use similar but more professional tools to be more productive. Low end bad photographers probably aren’t doing great but photography is not dead. In fact the opposite is true, there are millions of photographers making a lot of money (eg influencers) and there are still people studying photography.

[euvin]

It doesn't comfort me when people say jobs will "go the way of photography". Many choose to go into STEM fields for financial stability and opportunity. Many do not choose the arts because of the opposite. You can point out outlier exceptions and celebrities, but I find it hard to believe that the rare cases where "it really matters" can sustain the other 90% who need income.

[snozolli]

photography is not dead

It very nearly is. I knew a professional, career photographer. He was probably in his late 50s. Just a few years ago, it had become extremely difficult to convince clients that actual, professional photos were warranted. With high-quality iPhone cameras, businesses simply didn't see the value of professional composition, post-processing, etc.

These days, anyone can buy a DSLR with a decent lens, post on Facebook, and be a 'professional' photographer. This has driven prices down and actual professional photographers can't make a living anymore.

[adabyron]

We've had this with web development for decades now. Only makes sense it continues to evolve & become easier for people, just as programming in general has. Same with photography (like you mentioned) & especially for producing music or videos.

[csomar]

Just give it a year for this bubble/hype to blow over. We have plateaued since gpt-4 and now most of the industry is hype-driven to get investor money. There is value in AI but it's far from it taking your job. Also everyone seems to be investing in dumb compute instead of looking for the new theoretical paradigm that will unlock the next jump.

[why_only_15]

how is this a plateau since gpt-4? this is significantly better

[tigershark]

Where is the plateau? Chatgtp 4 was ~0% in ARC-AGI. 4o was 5%. This model literally solved it with a score higher than the 85% of the average human. And let’s not forget the unbelievable 25% in frontier math, where all the most brilliant mathematicians in the world cannot solve by themselves a lot of the problems. We are speaking about cutting edge math research problems that are out of reach from practically everyone. You will get a rude awakening if you call this unbelievable advancement a “plateau”.

[dyauspitr]

Did you read the article at all? We’re definitely not plateauing.

[kortilla]

Don’t worry. This thing only knows how to answer well structured technical questions.

99% of engineering is distilling through bullshit and nonsense requirements. Whether that is appealing to you is a different story, but ChatGPT will happily design things with dumb constraints that would get you fired if you took them at face value as an engineer.

ChatGPT answering technical challenges is to engineering as a nailgun is to carpentry.

[throw83288]

This is me as well. Either:

1) Just give up computing entirely, the field I've been dreaming about since childhood. Perhaps if I immiserate myself with a dry regulated engineering field or trade I would perhaps survive to recursive self-improvement, but if anything the length it takes to pivot (I am a Junior in College that has already done probably 3/4th of my CS credits) means I probably couldn't get any foothold until all jobs are irrelevant and I've wasted more money.

2) Hard pivot into automation, AI my entire workflow, figure out how to use the bleeding edge of LLMs. Somehow. Even though I have no drive to learn LLMs and no practical project ideas with LLMs. And then I'd have to deal with the moral burden that I'm inflicting unfathomable hurt on others until recursive self-improvement, and after that it's simply a wildcard on what will happen with the monster I create.

It's like I'm suffocating constantly. The most I can do to "cope" is hold on to my (admittedly weak) faith in Christ, which provides me peace knowing that there is some eternal joy beyond the chaos here. I'm still just as lost as you.

[TheRizzler]

Yes, some tasks, even complex tasks will become more automated, and machine driven, but that will only open up more opportunities for us as humans to take on more challenging issues. Each time a great advancement comes we think it's going to kill human productivity, but really it just amplifies it.

[barney54]

Dude chill! Eight years ago, I remember driving to some relatives for Thanksgiving and thinking that self-driving cars were just around the corner and how it made no sense for people to learn how to drive semis. Here we are eight years later and self-driving semis aren't a thing--yet. They will be some day, but we aren't there yet.

If you want to work in computing, then make it happen! Use the tools available and make great stuff. Your computing experience will be different from when I graduated from college 25 years ago, but my experience with computers was far different from my Dad's. Things change. Automation changes jobs. So far, it's been pretty good.

[nisa]

Honestly how about stop stressing and bullshitting yourself to death and instead focus on learning and mastering the material in your cs education. There is so much that ai as in openai api or hugging face models can't do yet or does poorly and there are more things to cs than churning out some half-broken JavaScript for some webapp.

It's powerful and world changing but it's also terrible overhyped at the moment.

[j7ake]

The solution is neither: you find a way to work with automation but retain your voice and craft.

[sensanaty]

Dude, you're buying into the hype way too hard. All of this LLM shit is being massively overhyped right now because investors are single-minded morons who only care about cashing out a ~year from now for triple what they put in. Look at the YCombinator batches, 90+% of them have some mention of AI in their pitch even if it's hilariously useless to have AI. You've got toothbrushes advertising AI features. It's a gold rush of people trying to get in on the hype while they still can, I guarantee you the strategy for 99% of the YCombinator AI batch is to get sold to M$ or Google for a billion bucks, not build anything sustainable or useful in any way.

It's a massive bubble, and things like these "benchmarks" are all part of the hype game. Is the tech cool and useful? For sure, but anyone trying to tell you this benchmark is in any way proof of AGI and will replace everyone is either an idiot or more likely has a vested interest in you believing them. OpenAI's whole marketing shtick is to scare people into thinking their next model is "too dangerous" to be released thus driving up hype, only to release it anyway and for it to fall flat on its face.

Also, if there's any jobs LLMs can replace right now, it's the useless managerial and C-suite, not the people doing the actual work. If these people weren't charlatans they'd be the first ones to go while pushing this on everyone else.

[melagonster]

Don't worry, they will hire somebody to control AI...

[myko]

spend a little time learning how to use LLMs and i think you'll be less scared. they're not that good at doing the job of a software developer.

[prpl]

In 2016 I was asked by an Uber driver in Pittsburgh when his job would be obsolete (I’d worked around Zoox people quite a bit and Uber basically was all-in at CMU.

I told him it was at least 5 years, probably 10, though he was sure it would be 2.

I was arguably “right”, 2023-ish is probably going to be the date people put down in the books, but the future isn’t evenly distributed. It’s at least another 5 years, and maybe never, before things are distributed among major metros, especially those with ice. Even then, the AI is somehow more expensive than human solution.

I don’t think it’s in most companies interest to price AI way below the price of meat, so meat will hold out for a long time, maybe long enough for you to retire even

[esafak]

Just don't have kids?

[baron816]

What I keep telling people is, if it becomes possible for one person or a handful of people to build and maintain a Google scale company, and my job gets eliminated as a result, then I’m going to go out and build a Google scale company.

There’s an incredibly massive amount of stuff the world needs. You probably live in a rich country, but I doubt you are lacking for want. There are billionaires who want things that don’t exist yet. And, of course, there are billions of regular folks who want some of the basics.

So long as you can imagine a better world, there will be work for you to do. New tools like AGI will just make it more accessible for you to build your better future.

[ApolloFortyNine]

>Seems like we’re headed toward a world where you automate someone else’s job or be automated yourself.

This has essentially been happening for thousands of years. Any optimization to work of any kind reduces the number of man hours required.

Software of pretty much any form is entirely that. Even early spreadsheet programs would replace a number of jobs at any company.

[myko]

LLMs are mostly hype. They're not going to change things that much.

[AnimalMuppet]

The future belongs to those who believe there will be one.

That is: If you don't believe there will be a future, you give up on trying to make one. That means that any kind of future that takes persistent work becomes unavailable to you.

If you do believe that there will be a future, you keep working. That doesn't guarantee there will be a future. But not working pretty much guarantees that there won't be one, at least not one worth having.

[chairmansteve]

Think of AI as an excavator. You know, those machines that dig holes. 70 years ago, those holes would have been dug by 50 men with shovels. Now it's one guy in an excavator. But we don't have mass unemployment. The excavator just creates more work for bricklayers, carpenters etc.

If AI lives up to hype, you could be the excavator driver. Or, the AI will create a ton of upstream and downstream work. There will be no mass unemployment.

[zmgsabst]

Horses never recovered from mechanization.

[euvin]

If AGI is the excavator, why wouldn't it become the driver, bricklayer, and carpenter as well?

[realce]

Is there any possible technology that could make labor, mastery, or human expirence obsolete?

Are there no limits to this argument? Is it some absolute universal law that all new creations just create increasing economic opportunities?

[antihipocrat]

Your performance on these tests would be equivalent to the highest performing model, and you would be much cheaper.

Investment in human talent augmented by AI is the future.

[kenjackson]

That’s the least reassuring phrasing I could imagine. If you’re betting on costs not reducing for compute then you’re almost always making the wrong bet.

[hoekit]

As engineers, we solve problems. Picking a problem domain close to your heart that intersects with your skills will likely be valued - and valuable. Engage the work, aim to understand and solve the human problems for those around you, and the way forward becomes clearer. Human problems (food, health, safety) are generally constant while tools may change. Learn and use whatever tools to help you, be it scientific principles, hammers or LLMs. For me, doing so and living within my means has been intrinsically satisfying. Not terribly successful materially but has been a good life so far. Good luck.

[post-it]

As long as your chosen profession isn't completing AI benchmarks for money, you should be okay.

[anshulbhide]

You're actually positioned to have an amazing career.

Everyone needs to know how to either build or sell to be successful. In a world where the ability to the former is rapidly being commoditised, you will still need to sell. And human relationships matter more than ever.

[Art9681]

It's a tool. You learn to master it or not. I have greybeard coworkers that dissed the technology as a fad 3 years ago. Now they are scrambling to catch up. They have to do this while sustaining a family with pets and kids and mortgages and full time senior jobs.

You're in a position to invest substantial amounts of time compared to your seniors. Leverage that opportunity to your advantage.

We all have access to these tools for the most part, so the distinguishing factor is how much time you invest and how much more ambitious you become once you begin to master the tool.

This time its no different. Many Mechanical and Sales students in the past never got jobs in those fields either. Decades before AI. There were other circumstances and forces at play and a degree is not a guaranteed career in anything.

Keep going because what we DO know is that trying wont guarantee results, we DO know that giving up definitely won't. Roll the dice in your favor.

[callc]

> I have greybeard coworkers that dissed the technology as a fad 3 years ago. Now they are scrambling to catch up. They have to do this while sustaining a family with pets and kids and mortgages and full time senior jobs.

I want to criticize Art’s comment on the grounds of ageism or something along the lines of “any amount life outside of programming is wasted”, but regardless of Art’s intention there is important wisdom here. Use your free time wisely when you don’t have much responsibilities. It is a superpower.

As for whether to spend it on AI, eh, that’s up to you to decide.

[aussieguy1234]

Full on mechanical engineering needs a body. While there are companies working on embodiment, were not there yet.

It'll be some time before there is a robot with enough spatial reasoning to do complicated physical work with no prior examples.

[antman]

I think we are pretty far. I am not devaluing the o3 capability but going through actual dataset the definition of "handling novel tasks" is pretty limited. The curse of large context of llms is especially present engineering projects and does not appear it will not end up producing the plans of a bridge, or an industrial process. Sone of tasks with smaller contexts sure can be assisted, but you cant RAG or Agent a full solution for the foreseeable future. O3 adds capability towards agi, but in reality actual infinite context with less intelligence would be more disrupting at a shorter time if one was to choose.

[m3kw9]

Always need to believe AI needs to be operated by humans, when it can go end to end to replace a human, you will likely not need to worry about money.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I suppose now that we have the technology to automatically solve coloured grid puzzles, mechanical engineering is obsolete.

[obirunda]

Yeah, it may feel scary but the biggest issue yet to be overcome is that to replace engineers you need reliable long horizon problem solving skills. And crucially, you need to not be easily fooled by the progress or setbacks of a project.

These benchmark accomplishments are awesome and impressive, but you shouldn't operate on the assumption that this will emerge as an engineer because it performs well on benchmarks.

Engineering is a discipline that requires understanding tools, solutions and every project requires tiny innovations. This will make you more valuable, rather than less. Especially if you develop a deep understanding of the discipline and don't overly rely on LLMs to answer your own benchmark questions from your degree.

[textlapse]

Imagine graduating in architecture or mechanical engineering around the time PCs just came out. There were people who probably panicked.

But the arc of time intersects quite nicely with your skills if you steer it over time.

Predicting it or worrying about it does nothing.

[sigbottle]

Side note: Why do I keep seeing disses to mechanical engineering here? How is that possibly a less valuable degree than web dev or a standard CRUD backend job?

Especially with AI provably getting extremely smart now, surely engineering disciplines would be having a boon as people want these things in their homes for cheaper for various applications.

[eidorb]

Do what you enjoy. (This is easier said than done.) What else could you do, worry?

[cheriot]

I graduated high school in '02 and everyone assured me that all tech jobs were being sent to India. "Don't study CS," they said. Thankfully I didn't listen.

Either this is the dawn of something bigger than the industrial revolution or you'll have ample career opportunity. Understanding how things work and how people work is a powerful combination.

[AI_beffr]

even if you had a billion dollars and a private island you still wouldnt be ready for whats coming. consider the fact that the global order is an equilibrium where the military and economic forces of each country in the world are pushing against each other... where the forces find a global equilibrium is where borders are. each time in history that technology changed, borders changed because the equilibrium was disturbed. there is no way to escape it: agi will lead to global war. the world will be turned upside down. we are entering into an existential sinkhole. and the idiots in silicon valley are literally driving the whole thing forward as fast as possible.

[martin82]

buy bitcoin.

when the last job has been automated away, millions of AIs globally will do commerce with each other and they will use bitcoin to pay each other.

as long as the human race (including AIs) produces new goods and services, the purchasing power of bitcoin will go up, indefinitely. even more so once we unlock new industries in space (settlements on the Moon and Mars, asteroid mining etc).

The only thing that can make a dent into bitcoin's purchasing power would be all out global war where humanity destroys more than it creates.

The only other alternative is UBI, which is Communism and eternal slavery for the entire human race except the 0.0001% who run the show.

Chose wisely.

[HDThoreaun]

Bitcoin is a horrible currency. Its a fun proof of concept but not a scalable payment solution. Currency needs to be stable and cheap to transfer.

[conception]

This must be a joke since you must know how many people control the majority of bitcoin.