I get the point you are making, but the hypothetical question from your manager doesn't make sense to me.
It's obviously true that any of your particular coworker wouldn't be useful to you relative to an AI agent, since their goal is to perform their own obligations to the rest of the company, whereas the singular goal of the AI tool is to help the user.
Until these AI tools can completely replace a developer on its own, the decision to continue employing human developers or paying for AI tools will not be mutually exclusive.
I think the initial job loss from AI will come from having individual workers be more productive and eliminate the need to have larger teams to get the same work done.
Eventually, maybe. Right now I see a lot more people wasting time with AI in search of these promised efficiencies. A lot of companies reducing headcount are simply hiding the fact that they are deprioritizing projects or reducing their overall scope because the economy is shit (I know, I know - but it feels worse than reported IMO) and that's the right business cycle thing to do. If you're dramatic and take the DOGE/MAGA approach to management, just fire everyone and the important issues will become obvious where investment is actually needed. It's a headcount 'zero based budget' played out IRL. The truth is, there is a lot of fat to be cut from most large companies and I feel like it's the current business trend to be ruthless with the blade, especially since you have AI as a rose colored scapegoat.
The way I like to describe it is that you can't go from 1 developer to 0 thanks to AI, but you might be able to go from 10 to 9. Although not sure what the exact numbers are.
I'll go further than you. Even if the team is a cost center, it may not make sense to reduce the headcount if there's still more work to do. After all, an internal team that just assists other teams in the company without directly creating value suddenly become more productive could in turn make the other teams more productive. Automatically reducing headcount after a productivity increase is like that effect where people drive more dangerously when wearing seatbelts.
> Like how Reddit is fine with r/Superbowl deleting any post that isn't a picture of an owl.
Minor nitpick: I agree with the idea, but the deletion of any post that doesn't contain an owl on r/Superbowl isn't a ridiculous rule. The subreddit is dedicated to "superb owls" and not to anything else.
Agreed. When I go to the superbowl subreddit, I am expecting many superb owls and nothing else. I don't see how anyone can have a problem with that. Sometimes, the users are the problem and we need a heavy hand to make sure they are obedient -- all for their benefit, not ours.
Reminds me of Saturday Night Live’s Celebrity Jeopardy where one contestant famously mispronounced “ThePenIsMightier” category. (Just lowercase the first “I”)
Applying LLMs or AI to our schedules isn't an unreasonable idea. If it could improve our own productivity even just slightly, I would consider that a win. It would be democratizing the effects of value add from traditional assistants to everyone.
I think good ideas sometimes come from connecting two concepts that seem unrelated, and we shouldn't really silence any of these ideas.
All this feels like a rehash of the British Empire selling Opium to China in the 18th century. Only this time it's China supplying the United States along with other addictive digital platforms such as TikTok.
> All this feels like a rehash of the British Empire selling Opium to China in the 18th century. Only this time it's China supplying the United States ...
The GP equated Brits selling (supplying) opium to China to China supplying Fentanyl to the US. Both actions have provably deleterious effects to a population.
Perhaps not, but by instilling guilt in your victim, you can prevent them from defending themselves, if you convince them they "deserve it". Keep an eye out for this tactic - it is very common.
To me it seems silly to put the blame on China here. The US drug policy and overall capability to care for its poor has been a disaster for decades, with the drug policy slowly changing for the better recently. It feels wrong to turn this into some kind of anti-China thing (plenty of other, better reasons certainly exist).
Because the United States is not, nor has ever been, a part of the British Empire.
Karma[0]:
the force generated by a person's actions held
in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate
transmigration and in its ethical consequences
to determine the nature of the person's next
existence
Even when extending the definition from "a person" to "a country", karma[0] does not apply in this situation.
> the United States is not, nor has ever been, a part of the British Empire.
The United States, shortly before calling itself the United Colonies, and shortly before that calling itself the Continental Association was formed as a group of colonies in British North America with common grievances against the government in London that it initially directed to the King within, and backed by an embargo against much of the rest of, the Empire. That attempt to improve the government of their part of the Empire to their satsifaction failing, they subsequently declared and eventually secured independence.
Which is to say that while it didn’t change its name to the United States until it had decided to exit the Empire, the organization that became known as the United States was formed as an association and agenda within the British Empire.
More to the point, the US, while not a belligerent in the Opium Wars, was a participant in the unequal treaties imposed through them (and played “good cop” while the British and French used force after the treaties relating to the 2nd Opium War were signed to secure their ratification.)
> Which is to say that while it didn’t change its name to the United States until it had decided to exit the Empire ...
Hence my explicit use of United States, as it came to be after the colonies were no longer. Virtually all of the people who remained were previously British subjects, of course.
But designations before a nation exists are moot for those whom subsequently are a part of said nation.
Regarding the Opium Wars, I detailed in a peer comment my understanding of US involvement and responsibility. Even if one were to posit the US is equally responsible for supplying opium to China as the British Empire was, a position I disagree with, it would still fail to negate my original premise:
We know what you think you are doing but it's as dumb as a criminal believing that changing their name exculpates them from their past crimes. New name, different person right?
> Two wrongs do not make a right.
Punishments without cause is called a wrong, punishment with cause is called justice... or karma in the casual sense.
The US is what happens when you cream off the religious nutcases from the British Empire, put the greediest in charge and found a new Empire based on conquest, genocide and chattel slavery. Plenty of justice waiting for America.
I wonder how much of America today is actually descended from these "religious nutcases", is it not a nation of immigrants? I think its interesting that you think surreptitiously poisoning a population could be considered justice for crimes that population did not commit. Very spicy take though, me me likey.
They had like 20 marines involved in one of the opium wars, so they weren’t completely non-belligerent. But this came after the Taiping Rebellion that killed 20-30 million people, so the Qing dynasty was really weak at that point.
United States did partake in the Opium trade in China, even though they were well aware of the harm, and profited from the wars the British and French fought.
Drawing a distinction that the US is completely seperate from the British Empire is pretty dishonest. If you mean the "state" sure, by definition, but it's culture, origin, people, primary (though not official) language all came from the British empire.
> United States did partake in the Opium trade in China, even though they were well aware of the harm, and profited from the wars the British and French fought.
True, there were US merchants which participated in supplying opium to China. Sometimes representing themselves, sometimes as proxies for British concerns. Also, an argument can be made that the East India Company operated under the influence, if not control, of the Crown. I do not believe the same argument could be made for US involvement, though I could be wrong.
However, unlike the British, the US in the Treaty of Wangxia agreed that any American involved in the opium trade would be prosecuted under Chinese law. Note that this does not absolve those involved in the opium trade prior or subsequent to this treaty for their actions.
> Drawing a distinction that the US is completely seperate from the British Empire is pretty dishonest.
No, it is not. It is a matter of historical fact[0]. Just because one nation can trace ancestry to another does not mean the newer one is answerable for the older one's actions. Are there commonalities between them? Of course.
But they are as distinct as a child is from their parents.
Aren't Americans of German descent the largest group in the country? I didn't think that Americans of English/British descent were anywhere close (I would guess third at best, after Irish descent)
German-Americans are largest self-identified. But if we're talking about white people, US originated almost entirely by English people until the 1820 wave of German immigration. English are the largest, followed by German, Irish, Italian.
Not to mention US helped China to fight Japan, and build hospitals,etc. US never took an inch territory from China when it had the power to do that.
Russia on the other hand took a huge chunk territory from China and invaded and killed countless Chinese, but, China loves Russia while always hated US, I could never figure out why.
read true history how Korea war started. and no, USA army did not enter China, they were surprised to be ambushed by Chinese soldiers there out from nowhere, then both started killing. china "volunteered" to start killing Americans first in Korea and USA never even entered china.
historically countries all had conflicts and wars, if that's where you're going for "USA did something to China", you can list what they exactly did. While you do that, please do not forget, Chinese killed each other over history and it's probably 1 million times more than whatever the western alliance did together. Not an excuse for any sides, history is just sad and bloody, but focusing on blaming other countries is barking the wrong tree, for the most part.
let's get it straight, what' is exactly the false claim are you referring to? I never said USA did nothing to China, in fact it helped China a lot.
If you mean "China does not hate US", then check its textbooks and the government propaganda since 1950 until now.
If you mean "American bullets chopped off Chinese soldiers' heads", it goes both ways, are you saying US soldiers are supposed to remain quiet while being ambushed by Chinese soldiers? Or South Korea should just give up when invaded by North Korea? that's why I said who started the war is key. No wonder China is backing up Russia these days, invasion seems justified there.
If you mean "why USA are at Korea", then "Why China was at Korea many times including this time"?
Read history, all things happened for a reason, nobody is innocent.
Korea (now North Korea) was/is an ally of China and requested them there. The push up to Pyongyang was 100% USA taking territory from China. Just as Taliban taking territory in Afghanistan was taking territory from USA.
There was also the Vietnam war where China also supplied arms and soldiers.
I’m not saying China are good, or USA are bad. I’m refuting your claim the USA never did anything to China.
The constant harassment of Chinas border within the taiwan straight is another example. The building of satellite states (south Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Phillipines) surrounding China is another example.
McArthur also wanted to nuke Manchuria and poison the ground from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea with radioactive cobalt to create a DMZ which the enemy could not cross. He was relieved by President Truman.
Except this is PRC being largely passive and watching fallout of American drug war failing. First opium war involved UK forcing, via military, Qing to stop domestic enforcement of ban on opium trade. Current Fenanyl "war" is PRC no longer actively cooperating with US on transnational drug war, which PRC did when relations were good - they scheduled fentanyl, a legal drug, on list of controlled narcotics in 2019 at US request. Now that relations are bad, there's no reason to commit state resources to enforce or support US antidrug efforts, especially for otherwise a legal medical product or precursor. Even less so when it's routed through third countries like Mexico - who to be fair asked PRC for help to get US off their backs, but why bother. Not saying PRC doesn't indirectly benefit, but at this point dead Americans is more side effect of allowing PRC triads to build network / influence in LATAM. Ultimately Americans will find some other supplier or substance to kill themselves with regardless and PRC inaction is cheap.
Americans somehow expect that they can wage economic warfare against China, trying to wipe out its entire tech sector, and then ask China to go out of its way to help the US control its own drug problems. If the US wants Chinese cooperation, the US should act reasonably towards China in other areas.
This is not even to mention how crass the comparison between TikTok and the Opium Wars is.
I've found myself running into sync-conflicts while editing my Obsidian Vault in a syncthing folder in the past. Did syncthing work flawlessly OOB in your experience?
I agree. Abagnale never outputted anything for the public, but he has outputted tremendous good for himself at the expense of others. Him and Jobs both achieved feats that no average man could have achieved.
Does anyone know how cost effective a base M1 Mac Studio would be compared to a PC build with comparable cost?
There's also the obvious set of trade offs, such as being quiet, compact, but being unrepairable, while the PCs having nearly the opposite qualities.
Is the power efficiency of Apple Silicon still a major advantage in a desktop system?
> Does anyone know how cost effective a base M1 Mac Studio would be compared to a PC build with comparable cost?
If you normalize to performance, building a comparable PC for things like compiling code can be about half the price. Intel and AMD’s latest top-end consumer CPUs are very, very fast and significantly cheaper.
> Is the power efficiency of Apple Silicon still a major advantage in a desktop system?
If you’re going for ultimate silence and/or you need the smallest machine possible, power efficiency matters.
If you’re spending 99% of your time in the code editor and web browser, your CPU is going to be mostly idle anyway and peak power usage basically doesn’t matter. A decently configured AMD or even Intel system with reasonable fan curves can be plenty quiet for the 1% of time that you’re at 100% CPU usage (hint: embrace the high temperatures and let it throttle, it’s fine).
I watched one guy build a hackentosh for the same price as a Mac mini and compared them. The intel based one wins in multi threaded workloads but the M1 wins in single threaded, power efficiency, and things which it has hardware acceleration like video encoding.
Light gaming seems common, asahi linux streams have have minecraft, tux racer, mario kart, and related. Seems like a fair amount of ML (both inference and training) going on. PyTouch now works with CPU, GPU, and AMX (via metal), and seen some posts on using the neural to achieve a 7x improvement over the GPUs, but not upstreamed yet. One bonus is the GPU (and AMX) can access all memory, not just the 8-16GB that's common on GPUs these days.
I'm not a heavy gamer, but having some 3D is nice. I'd likely buy a 7900 (non-x) or 7800X3D if buying now, but not going to spend $800 and up for current gen GPUs, maybe get a 3060 or 3060 Ti. The Mac Studio is looking pretty promising, hopefully it's refreshed with the M2 CPUs RSN.
It really depends on how much you were planning to lard up that Mac with expensive Apple memory and storage. The more of that you want or need, the better the PC is going to look. Ballparking:
ATX case $100
650W ATX PSU apparently these are the smallest now? $100
Z690 motherboard you can spend a lot here but say $250
Reputable DDR5 DIMMs: $70 per 16GB, $120 for 32GB, $220 for 64GB
Reputable 1TB SSD $100
Excellent and quiet air cooler: $100
CPU similar in single-thread perf to M2: $400
You'll note the absence of GPU. I personally don't use them so I see no value in Apple's supposedly quite good ones. And we don't have 4x Thunderbolt ports that will set you back another $100. But we're up to $1200 which is noticeably less than any Mac Studio model.
It would be interesting to see a 24 or 32 core Threadripper vs the Mac Studio. I didn't price out the full system but those CPUs are in the $1300-2800 range
It’s about half the cost to build your own based on Ryzen thread ripper and DDR5. I’ve done this before however, it’s not ARM64. It also requires like 1000w power supply. Can you build a machine just as capable? Yes. Will it be as efficient? No. Will it be Arm? Probably not. That said, I run Apple MacBook Air as my daily so YMMV.
*edit* ok a bit more than half. Chip shortage has scalpers sitting on threadrippers.
Do you need a Threadripper to compete with M1 Ultra? Ryzen 9 7950X seems pretty comparable and doesn't require a 1000W PSU unless you must pair it with a 4090 or something.
Depends, how cache friendly is your workload? The M1 ultra has more than 4x the memory bandwidth of the threadripper. Of course the GPU makes a big difference in cost and power use. If you need a 4090, there's nothing comparable. But if the Apple iGPU is enough you save a ton of power and space.
It's obviously true that any of your particular coworker wouldn't be useful to you relative to an AI agent, since their goal is to perform their own obligations to the rest of the company, whereas the singular goal of the AI tool is to help the user.
Until these AI tools can completely replace a developer on its own, the decision to continue employing human developers or paying for AI tools will not be mutually exclusive.
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