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Top-level
 @simon I have been struggling with terminology, so this is useful. That said, I'm not a fan of "interns" used like this. The context that you used it in felt more appropriate than a whole class of AI terminology that literally means to replace a useful class of workers and learning. I have personally struggled with the term Agents for lack of a framework or way to use them outside of running a Python script. 6 comments
@simon Knowing how tech works, I hate that the term Intern when used in AI is going to kill most internships or at least the paid ones. "Supervised {AI Term}" would be better. Same goes when someone deems a medical AI with "Nurse" which also feels like the wrong term. I understand the "weird intern" terminology, but that felt more like you are asking weird questions, expecting that the result than the answers one gets are weird by default.  @webology I think the reason I don't find the term as upsetting is that I'm not sold on the "AI means no more junior/intern roles" thing yet I think it means no more not-AI-enhanced juniors, but I'm very excited to see what AI-enhanced juniors end up looking like Maybe I'm completely out of touch and the intern/junior role has been extinguished already though @simon Overall, the numbers seem to have fallen off quite a bit this year. I lazily searched and linked the first one https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-13/looking-for-an-internship-fewer-spots-for-more-applicants-in-cutthroat-year but I have heard a half dozen Bloomburg articles (my preferred morning finance/business news via Echo) that have been reporting on it for a while. I would be shocked if 2025 isn't much worse. @webology right, but is that because of AI, or is it because the tech companies all over-hired during the pandemic, had massive layoffs and as a result the market is flooded with experienced talent which makes the market for juniors really awful? @simon It's both, but 2025 will be more AI-driven than 2024 was. Now I hear at least once a week on podcasts like Marketing Against the Grain and whatever Greg Isenberg is one that Iterns are a waste of money over AI. So that's a trend you can calendar and we look at in a year and it will be more then norm. |
Gregory's Server
@webology my usual version is "weird intern" to help emphasize that it's really not a replacement for an actual human intern - but I do find the term useful in that it indicates the need for close supervision and some form of "coaching" in terms of prodding it in the right direction
I hate the term "agent", everyone seems to have a completely different idea of what it means, and often don't seem to realize that there's no single universal definition so nobody else understands what they mean