> Truthfully, I don't want to get advice from people who become addicted to AI, sorry.
If you sleep on this, these people are going to take your job.
I've been writing serious systems code for 15 years. Systems that handled billions of dollars of transaction volume a day and whose hourly outages cost billions of dollars. These are systems you have to design carefully. Active-active, beyond five nines reliable.
I'm telling you AI is extremely beneficial even in this segment of the market. The value prop is undeniable.
I'm easily getting twice my workload done with AI, and I'm not even leveraging the full extent of the tools. I've only just started to do more than fancy tab-autocomplete.
This is going to be a huge shift in our industry, and I would brace for impact.
Your $300k+ TC job is going away. The only way you'll make the same take home is if you provide more value.
You can be a robotic IC, but you won't be any better than a beginner with Claude Code. You have to level up your communication and organizational value to stay at the top.
Everyone has to wear the cloth of a senior engineer now to simply stay in place. If you can't write well, communicate well, plan and organize, you're not providing more value than a Claude-enhanced junior.
"If you can't write well, communicate well, plan and organize"
Straw man. Pretty sure, this is the dilbert equivalent of "I can problem solve". If you are an engineer, we are making boatloads being brought in to fix the incompetence of this level of thinking. INFOSEC alone is having a field day.
Would you like to buy a bridge? Coded by Claude. One previous owner. An owner who used said bridge to go to church once a week, and vibe code in Starbucks afterwoods.
I think we're all coping a bit here. This time, it really is different.
The fact is, one developer with Claude code can now do the work of at least two developers. If that developer doesn't have ADHD, maybe that number is even higher.
I don't think the amount of work to do increases. I think the number of developers or the salary of developers decreases.
In any case, we'll see this in salaries over the next year or two.
The very best move here might be to start working for yourself and delete the dependency on your employer. These models might enable more startups.
Why wouldn't we find new things to do with all that new productivity?
Anecdotally, this is what I see happening in the small in my own work - we say yes to more ideas, more projects, because we know we can unblock things more quickly now - and I don't see why that wouldn't extend.
I do expect to see smaller teams - maybe a lot more one-person "teams" - and perhaps smaller companies. But I expect to see more work being done, not less, or the same.
Alternate take: what agents can spit out becomes table stakes for all software. Making it cohesive, focused on business needs, and stemming complexity are now requirements for all devs.
By the same token (couldn’t resist), I also would argue we should be seeing the quality of average software products notch up by now with how long LLMs have been available. I’m not seeing it. I’m not sure it’s a function of model quality, either. I suspect devs that didn’t care as much about quality hadn’t really changed their tune.
You sound bored. If we triple head count overnight, we'd only slow our backlog, temporarily. Every problem we solve only opens up a larger group of harder problems to solve.
If LLMs are good at writing software, then there's lots of good software around written by LLMs. Where is that software? I don't see it. Logical conclusion: LLMs aren't good at writing software.
Presumably they are writing the same quality software faster, the market having decided what quality it will accept.
Once that trend maxes out it’s entirely plausible that the level of quality demanded will rise quickly. That’s basically what happened in the first dot com era.
> > The image of Saturn was generated with ChatGPT.
> Wait...wh...why?!?
It has just begun. Wait until nobody bothers using Wikipedia, websites, or even one day forums.
This is going to eat everything.
And when it's immediate to say something like, "I need a high contrast image of Saturn of dimensions X by Y, focus on Saturn, oblique angle" -- that's going to be magic.
We'll look at the internet and Google like we look at going to the library and grabbing an encyclopedia off the shelves.
The use of calculators didn't kill ingenuity, nor did the switch to the internet. Despite teachers protesting both.
Humans will always use the lowest friction thing, and we will never stop reaching for the stars.
I’ve been having The Talk with my kids recently. They’ll say “I looked up this question and the answer was X.” And I’ll ask “was that answer on a credible website, or was it an AI summary?” And then explain, again, that LLMs are great at producing plausible sounding explanations for things, but that you have to ground-truth anything that they tell you if it’s important that it’s correct.
Some countries are banning social media for teenagers, but they really should be banning "AI" all teenagers. Most adults can't even be trusted with asking an "AI" about anything, so children are going to have a very warped world view the more they interact with "AI". The tech really is not ready for prime time.
I, for one, have been hoping that AI slop would cause people to be a LOT more cynical about the information they get (from the internet in particular, but from any source in general)
You can nuke your account by doing something completely egregious like challenging someone here to a duel (it's happened! - account and all post history deleted - we don't see the -deleted-- placeholder as much as we used to)
You do you. I find this exceedingly cool and I think it's a fun new thing to do.
It's kind of like how people started watching Let's Plays and that turned into Twitch.
One of the coolest things recently is VTubers in mocap suits using AI performers to do single person improv performances with. It's wild and cool as hell. A single performer creating a vast fantasy world full of characters.
LLMs and agents playing Pokemon and StarCraft? Also a ton of fun.
AI is one of the best tool categories we've invented. I don't know why people are so pearl-clutchy, fisting-at-clouds about it.
Some of the worst human behavior I've experienced outside of grade school is the anti-AI crowd sending me death threats and endless streams of insults. It's surreal how twisted and vile the words that some anti-AI people throw are.
This is the fifth technological wave, after the chip, PC, internet, and smartphone.
All of human programming cannot do what AI is already showing signs of being capable of automating. Our image and video models can render things even 80 years of optical physics and algorithms cannot do.
I am legitimately excited in a way I never have been before. We're lucky to be able to witness this.
Some of the economy should be encouraged with heavy subsidy or though DoD purchases.
It's worked out well for us in the past.
Wind and solar, nuclear, EVs, manufacturing, robots, chips, and drones should be helped along by the state.
We would be stupid not to spend in these categories.
We should also build out chemical inputs manufacture, rare earths refining, pharmaceutical manufacture, etc. to support the work that happens downstream and to be less fragile to supply chain disruption.
A multi-polar world is inherently less stable and demands more self-sufficiency.
I'm really into geopolitics, and it's clear to see what's happening from the US side.
America still wants to play hegemon, but since Bretton Woods 2.0 didn't happen, they're going to lock up the entire North and South American continents from Chinese and Russian influence. And it'll be fierce.
The next salvo is going to be US statehood for Alberta and Saskatchewan. There is already partisan support within those provinces, and Trump is going to offer money to push it. If that happens, Yukon and the Northwest Territories are next.
(Side note: these are Republican voters, which gives Republicans the Senate for years to come.)
Venezuela wasn't about drugs or oil, it was about China. And it wasn't Trump's thing, it was the career DoD folks. (Venezuela is within medium-range missile range of 50% of US oil refineries. The US doesn't want foreign basing there or in Cuba.)
The DoD is pushing Greenland too as it'll be a centerpiece of Arctic shipping in the coming century. And Cuba, as it's both extremely close to CONUS and a choke point for the gulf.
You can see the plays happening if you watch. The Chinese-owned Panama Ports Company being forcibly sold to BlackRock, the increasing trade and diplomatic ties between China and South American countries, etc.
My bet is that a Democratic president would continue this policy, just with less rudeness and more "cooperation". The Department of Defense -- apolitically -- doesn't want China to have the US within arms reach.
Trump is going to try to speed run it, though.
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edit: downvotes rate limit my account, so I can't respond.
> I would love to hear how you think Trump will manage to get Alberta and Saskatchewan to become US states within this century.
It's going to nucleate from within Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Are you an American? Because this feels like a very US-centric view. I know you're not advocating for this, but it feels like the predictions you've set out for Canada are hitting this intrinsic bias that people who are really into geopolitics always have - they always think about the world as a fully-informed chess game where everyone always makes optimal moves, and they're biased towards predicting sweeping world-changing events that rarely happen due to a multitude of issues. The few major events that do happen often end up unraveling in completely different ways than the internet had predicted.
The Albertan separatism thing is largely drummed-up due to American aggression towards Canada, it slots right into the news cycle alongside threats of annexation that Canada was getting not that long ago. That being said, even in a province as conservative as Alberta, it remains a fringe view, even though some politicians are now willing to say the quiet part out loud. Consider how hard Quebec had tried to secede on multiple occasions, and yet despite having a far stronger case and far more supporters, still failed every time. Talking about Saskatchewan is just trying to lump them in with the Albertans, where in reality that group is even more niche.
But then talking about Yukon and the Northwest Territories just makes this look like enthusiastic map-painting. The reality is, both of these places are overwhelmingly indigenous, and they'd have no reason to ever want to not be part of Canada. Also, they're both territories, which in many ways means they're ruled directly by the federal government, a.k.a. you won't be getting those short of a military invasion or completely ruining the rest of the country to the point where they can just cut it all up.
I kinda agree with you. The US policy won't change much. It is a set policy but not very well executed, simply because such a policy is not in the interest of existing power base, so someone new but crude has to be elected, and that's why he got elected not once, but TWICE.
My understanding is that US is going to shrink back a bit, takes care of its neighbours first, but keep its probing bases intact, so that it can slash some costs and be more flexible in next decades. China is going to reluctantly expand its power base gradually -- but I think it's going to be a slow expansion because any rapid one would either fail, or create a new power group within China, that may threaten the existing players.
Not sure about EU though, it better gear up quickly.
>There is already partisan support within those provinces, and Trump is going to offer money to push it. If that happens, Yukon and the Northwest Territories are next. (Side note: these are Republican voters, which gives Republicans the Senate for years to come.)
Disagree.
1. If any Canadian province becomes an American state (with electoral votes), the Republicans won't win an election for the next 100 years. Even if it's Alberta.
2. Alberta likely won't secede unless they get full statehood. Nobody wants to be another Puerto Rico.
3. I think if you did a referendum in Alberta today (even with full US statehood on offer), the votes to secede would number over 10%.
Remember, Quebec in 1995: 50.58% voted to stay, with a turnout of 93.52%. And they were all but ready to leave to the point of engaging in IRA-style terrorism.
Also, the famous failure of Brexit all but precludes any such referendums from getting serious wind in our lifetimes.
The FLQ killing two politicians (one being accidental*) is very far removed from the scope of the IRA's terrorism. They were infiltrated to the bone by the RCMP that was trying to get them to escalate to put the war measure act in place and engage in a massive intimidation campaign on the massive peaceful and liberal part of the independence movement, something that is quite reminiscent of what is currently happening in Minneapolis.
*They did kidnap him but didn't intend to kill him, they were dumb revolted teenagers who fucked up.
It's not bad analysis, I upvoted you, but what you're forgetting is that nothing ever happens. Venezuela was just typical American meddling, Cuba might happen (I'd bet against it) but neither the Canada nor Greenland thing is going to happen because it would be too dramatic for narrative continuity.
> neither the Canada nor Greenland thing is going to happen
Greenland is happening, and will be underway soon. It's just a matter of how much international support it will have initially, and how the USA will strong arm support.
Canada is on the back burner after the realization that a country with a leader who was the Governor of the national banks of two major countries might know a thing or two about economic warfare.
> It's just a matter of how much international support it will have initially, and how the USA will strong arm support.
That's where i think France have dropped the ball with its last presidents. Any pre-2007 president would have already declared Greenland as "EU, thus France sovereign interest" and reiterated French nuclear doctrine since 1964 (One warning shot, then tactical nukes, aiming for the army/supply and not civilian infrastructure). Macron will never do that, because if you say it, you have to follow up.
Our official delegation left the Greenland delegation IN TEARS, and we pronounced 'it's happening' afterwards. These aren't shit posters on Twitter, these are our officials and our President ACTIVELY working to take over Greenland.
If Greenland was happening, what's taking them so long? The military could take it without a fight tonight, or last month for that matter.
They want it, but can't take it because it would be too shocking for the public (aka violating narrative continuity.) If they can prepare the public to accept it then it might happen, but most magas I talk to treat it like a joke, trolling the Europeans to make them invest in defense or something. I don't think the American public earnestly believes it will happen, and for that reason I think it won't happen.
Time may prove me wrong, we'll all find out eventually.
> If Greenland was happening, what's taking them so long?
Other priorities.
Plus, they need to arrange some international support to ensure that enough countries recognize the transition. That takes time to put into place both the carrots (weapons for Middle Easterners) and sticks (tariffs for Europeans).
Once this happens, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and maybe Egypt, Japan, SK, will recognize the transition as official.
It is not trolling when OUR OFFICIAL DELEGATION left Greenland's in tears. This is OFFICIAL POLICY, OFFICIAL DIPLOMACY and has nothing to do with MAGA, memes, jokes.
If I asked you 2 months ago 'do you think Trump will steal tankers of Venezuelan oil using the US military, sell the oil, and deposit the funds in accounts setup offshore in the middle eastern country that gave him a free jumbo jet?' would you have said 'there is no way that will happen'?
I'm sick of the 'it's just Trump being Trump' when no one would treat any other politician that way. No, it is the US President, who sent an official US delegation, which, when it left (after reducing Greenlands official delegation to tears) continued to say 'we are taking Greenland'. Fuck off with 'it's just Trump being Trump'. It is the United States President.
I'm not saying that it's trolling, I do think they genuinely want Greenland at least. I'm saying MAGA people, the portion of the voting public which actually support the administration, think it's trolling. The level of genuine support for it is virtually zero. That's the reason it hasn't already been done.
I hope I'm not talking to a wall here, because I already clearly explained this above: "most magas I talk to treat it like a joke, trolling the Europeans to make them invest in defense or something. I don't think the American public earnestly believes it will happen, and for that reason I think it won't happen."
W.r.t "other priorities", logistically it would be trivial. Their problem is political.
MAGA voters think every stupid thing he says is trolling. then when he does stupid things they just shrug and still worship him. this is no different. MAGA loves the ice gestapo, even if they're violating the law (and getting away with it).
I don't know what to tell someone who says ACTIVE, ONGOING, OFFICIAL NEGOTIATIONS that left the foreign country (who thought we were meme'ing until they met with our OFFICIALS) in tears, are just memes.
Meaning to or not you are running defense for it, as news coverage/sane people have done continuously for Trump with the 'it's just Trump being Trump'. Don't do that. Don't let them do that. This is the United State President sending an OFFICIAL delegation. It IS ALREADY OFFICIAL POLICY, we sent an OFFICIAL United States delegation that had official talks with Greenland's OFFICIALS. That is not just memes so I don't know how you accept people telling you it is. That is OFFICIAL UNITED STATES POLICY. Again, OFFICIAL DELEGATIONS meeting with FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS ARE NOT MEMEs. That half the country says they are means zero. It is in part how they empower Trump to get away with what they want.
That you accept 'official US policy that American diplomats are actively engaged in, right now, is just memes' is wild to me.
> I don't know what to tell someone who says ACTIVE, ONGOING, OFFICIAL NEGOTIATIONS that left the foreign country (who thought we were meme'ing until they met with our OFFICIALS) in tears, are just memes.
You've got a legitimate reading comprehension problem right now, because I am not saying that, have not said that, and have explained this to you three times now. Kindly calm down and read.
You keep saying 'it's not going to happen because MAGA' and I keep responding with 'Official Government policy is that it's going to happen, maybe you should focus on official government policy'. Sorry that you can't understand my point. I get that you really want to focus on rando MAGAs. I think it more realistic that we focus on what our Governments actual position is, and events occurring around it (such as Greenlander's that thought it was all meme'ing breaking down in tears when they met with us and realized it wasn't), and I'm not going to let your 'but Maga feelz...' have equal weight to ACTUAL United States policy and current diplomacy. Keep posting, I'll keep calling it out.
Active United States diplomacy trumps random Maga feelz. I'm not waiting for time to tell. I'm calling bullshit out, today, now. You can keep waiting for things to work out.
I agree with your assessment. But I think the leaders pulling these strings are not fully appreciating the costs of this security.
Controlling all of these foreign lands is pointless if the country collapses then Balkanizes. The past decade has brought so many events that nobody thought could ever happen that we need to be rearrange our beliefs. It's very possible that those of us around in 10 years will see this time period as being part of the Second American Civil war.
The only thing keeping people almost pacified is the economy is not total dogshit yet. But that's tenuous at best.
There's going to be a post-trump power vacuum. It will likely be much more bloody than our current situation.
Quebec already has laws on the book that make them de jure separate from Canada by claiming the Provincial governments have powers that supersede Ottawa's authority [0]. Nobody really talks about it beyond a, "lol no". It's the foundation of a crisis.
So Canada is already fractured. And there's a strong chance Québécois offer support of Alberta and Sas succession. Perhaps there will be some reciprocity and all three provinces leave Canada at the same time.
I live in a bubble in Calgary, and am from Montreal originally. Despite that, I saw lines of people waiting to sign petitions for separation in smaller cities. People who were happy to have their photos taken while they are signing petitions for separation from Canada.
There are some cultural factors in Alberta which draw it closer to the US than to Ontario and Quebec. Libertarianism, pro-fossil fuels, differences wrt firearms, differences in attitudes to crime and punishment, etc... The perception is that previous compromises around these items are slowly frayed to appease voting blocks in other provinces (mostly Quebec).
Then, the dirty reality; the Canadian economy has never been "great", at least in my lifetime. Nearly my whole class at university wound up going to the US, because one couldn't get a decent paying job in Canada in a lot of fields. Even our current prime minister did a ton of his work abroad. If separating (IE: joining the US) was only an economic question, only a tiny elite would support remaining a part of Canada.
The question Alberta separatists wish to ask is much less dishonest than the Quebec separation question in 95, which leads me to believe they are much more confident about their success. I wouldn't rule it out.
Then Danielle moved the goalposts to make it easier for the Independence folks:
Signature collection period: January 3 to May 2, 2026
Number of signatures required for a successful petition: 177,732
(10% of the total number votes cast in the 2023 Provincial General Election).
I feel that neither justifies 2 generations of separatist blackmail, and the use of holocaust terms for constitution failures between two Quebecois men (Lesvesque and Trudeau) is inappropriate — but completely and utterly unsurprising for the overwrought self-pitying elite of the province. Moreover, it is no surprise that Quebec rejects the constitution but simultaneously uses the Not Withstanding clause to block language and religious rights. It is like the bully in Doraemon — what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine.
That said I do grudgingly admire Lesvesque and felt he was much better than all of his successors. You could tell he had a philosophy of a Quebec that could be an actual nation, not merely a collection of childless people who spoke French and simply emulated France.
There is no Lesvesque in Alberta and that is why Alberta will never be a nation; only a gas station for the US. Still, if the only thing people value is income maybe that's the better outcome.
That might be the rhetoric, but separation means joining the US. The experience of landlocked country would be one of getting taken advantage of by every country around it.
There is a good 20% of people in Alberta who would vote for separation today. Take a close look, they aren't voting to be an independent country surrounded by a hostile country around it and a superpower that hijacks oil tankers to the south.
It is a stupid idea because the level of changes that would have to happen to everything would be much, much more than people realize. But Brexit has shown us that people will vote for stupid things if they are sold by trusted-but-dishonest actors
> The next salvo is going to be US statehood for Alberta and Saskatchewan. There is already partisan support within those provinces, and Trump is going to offer money to push it.
The polling puts it at 20% support and 80% opposed. This is not going to happen. As a Canadian who was born in Alberta and has lived in Alberta all my life, I will be remaining in Canada.
There is some small amount partisan support but not public support, massive difference. It might cost them the next election.
They aren't republican voters - there is sizable difference between the Canadian right and the US right. I think many Americans make this mistake (and Canadians too) - the republican positions on many things aren't that tenable to center of right (Canadian spectrum).
Also - There aren't many more things that are more toxic in Canada politics than Trump and Annexation. He single handedly handed the Federal election to the Liberals - it was the Conservatives who were going to win until he but his thumb on the scale.
> Also - There aren't many more things that are more toxic in Canada politics than Trump and Annexation. He single handedly handed the Federal election to the Liberals - it was the Conservatives who were going to win until he but his thumb on the scale.
Watching these discussions from the outside are statistics like four in ten (43%) Canadians age 18-34 would vote to be American if citizenship and conversion of assets to USD guaranteed [1]. I don't think the political similarities or differences between the American right and the Canadian right are what can result in one or more Canadian provinces joining the US; I think it's economic discontent.
You are thinking about this in terms of today. To put it in perspective, the same question polled 17% in the 55+ age group. Canada has serious generational problems, and as the boomers die the number of Canadians who vote that way naturally declines.
Well, I downvoted because I think your views are ill-informed and stupid, not because I think you're advocating for this. You fundamentally don't understand Trump and his ilk - he's petty, vindictive, vain, greedy and a bully. Everything runs on narrative and personal dealings, NOT any sort of rational goals or strategy. Ascribing these things to him is like pretending my cat is scheming about something when it jumps on a window. No bud, they're much simpler creatures.
Venezuela happened because it makes him look good on TV, that's it. There's no grand strategizing, it's a petty, vain person doing shitty things to make himself look great. He believes he is entitled to rule as an absolute monarch and acquiring territory (Greenland, Canada, etc) is just a way for himself to make himself more grand. Sorry, no grand strategy there either. I'll go further and say that part of what makes him so successful is that there's a large contingent of people that can't see him as he is and instead engage in this strategy larp like your various theories.
If you sleep on this, these people are going to take your job.
I've been writing serious systems code for 15 years. Systems that handled billions of dollars of transaction volume a day and whose hourly outages cost billions of dollars. These are systems you have to design carefully. Active-active, beyond five nines reliable.
I'm telling you AI is extremely beneficial even in this segment of the market. The value prop is undeniable.
I'm easily getting twice my workload done with AI, and I'm not even leveraging the full extent of the tools. I've only just started to do more than fancy tab-autocomplete.
This is going to be a huge shift in our industry, and I would brace for impact.
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