@baldur tech is so sheltered from the real world. Many people in tech have never done anything else in their life and it shows and expresses itself in total disregard for other people's professions and skills.

(And the fact that many of them should go to therapy to understand a few things about themselves and why they feel the way they do but don't is just the cherry on top)

@baldur Something like the get-rich-at-all-costs greed is turning peoples' brains to mush.

I follow these people because their advice on software and web dev is usually sound, but wow, so many people in tech are off-the-rails and into the weeds in their arrogant and utter disregard for the expertise required for any of the fields they are regard as “soft”, “humane”, or (unsurprisingly) feminine.

Much of the talk surrounding “AI” easily replacing all of these jobs is just pure mask-off inhumane.

@baldur “WTF is wrong with you people? Do you really have no clue about what other people’s jobs actually involve?”

Bingo!

@baldur @rysiek There are reasons they're in tech... 🤭

@baldur

> What’s wrong with people in tech?

None of these claims come from people in tech, at least not technical ones. And especially not from the real researchers in A.I ( C.f Yann leCun ).

They do come from the usual VCs, evangelists and stakeholders that surf from fake revolution to fake revolution for capital gains. It has been big data, then Blockchain and now A.I.

Ethics and consideration for humans are generally not a primary thought for these kinds of people.

@baldur TBF a lot of us tech people cringe just as hard at the Sparkling Autocorrect hype machine.

@baldur they hang out with too many other tech bros

@baldur We are called in to replace/automate/assist human jobs with software; this is why many of us believe *every* job can be replaced by software, because they don't understand we are called in only for specific jobs that can be translated into software. There's a filter upstream most of us aren't aware of.

Interestingly enough, one of the myriad jobs that cannot be replaced by software is our own. You can't AI away software development.

@baldur So true!!

@baldur
Well there is potential for AI to do all that... Just like there is potential for the space programms to get us into other galaxies.
All technically possible (in theory) but very unlikely in the next 200+ years or so..
@aral

@baldur Clifford Stoll said this in his famously mocked article in the 90s

@baldur i suspect here "better" mostly means "cheaper" and "more scalable", and bias thinking about only technologies that improved enormously in the last decades, not the ones that have not, gives the impression the really sub-par solutions of today will magically fix all their problems by throwing more power at them.

@baldur
The longer it goes on, the more the tech sector actually resembles the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
Making software that can force some of the most insane computing power ever assembled, actually lose it's ability to do basic math. That's some next level shit right there.

@baldur They are just techno-fascists. They believe that literally any problem can be solved with a bit of extra "tech". No matter what is nature of the problem.
It comes to belief that computers are superior to inferior people who behave illogical, suffer from emotions and can have patchy memory.

@baldur Maybe they think that if they pray hard enough, LLMs will become an AGI and solve all of their problems, so that they don’t have to…

@baldur

"What's wrong with people in tech?"

Dunno, can't speak for them all but I suspect that most of them abhor mindless stereotypes and reductionist hypocrisy.

@baldur Even if an LLM could be scaled into something that actually worked flawlessly, I would prefer a human therapist. The therapist's role isn't just to dispense advice - that's not even the most important part of the therapist's role. The therapist's role is also to be a comforting human presence, and to be someone who can *understand* and relate to the perspective of the client.

@baldur while it certainly won't replace therapists its actually a useful tool, already used by people to cope with stuff. It's in some cases more useful than a therapist, for example at 3am in the night when there is a mental breakdown going on or when you rather need someone to just listen and don't want to think about how that person thinks of you. Also if there is a crisis ai is a fast first responder and are surprisingly good at comforting humans

@baldur my bet is on tech people resenting these business folks for putting their office in the basement

@baldur People I Tech are stupid. They will promise the earth and deliver nothing. They also have little to no knowledge about what other people do and have no respect for what other people do. When they say that AI will can do what a doctor does ask them to seek patient care with the AI and you will note how quickly they backtrack.