I think perhaps for some folks we're looking at their first professional paradigm shift. If you're a bit older, you've seen (smaller versions of) the same thing happening before as e.g. the Internet gained traction, Web2.0, ecommerce, crypto, etc. and have seen your past skillset become useless as now it can be accomplished for only $10/mo/user.... either you pivot and move on somehow, or you become a curmudgeon. Truly, the latter is optional, and at any point when you find yourself doing that you wish to stop and just embrace the new thing, you're still more than welcome to do so. AI is only going to get EASIER to get involved with, not harder.

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wiml 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

And by the same token (ha) for some folks we're looking at their first hype wave. If you're a bit older, you've seen similar things like 4GLs and visual programming languages and blockchain and expert systems. They each left their mark on our profession but most of their promises were unfounded and ultimately unrealized.

	▲	mikestorrent 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I like a lot of 4GL ideas. Closest I've come was working on ServiceNow which is sort of a really powerful system with ugly, ugly roots but the idea of your code being the database being the code really resonated with me, as a self-taught programmer. Similarly, Lisp's homoiconicity makes sense to me as a wonderfully aesthetic idea. I remember generating strings-of-text that were code, but still just text, and wishing that I could trivially step into the structure there like it was a map/dict... without realizing that that's what an AST is and what the language compiler / runtime is already always doing.

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troupo 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Lol. In a few years when the world is awash in AI-generated slop [1] my "past skills" will not only be relevant, they will be actively sought after.

[1] Like the recent "Gas Town" and "Beads" that people keep mentioning in the comments that require extensive scripts/human intervention to purge from the system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46510121

	▲	mikestorrent 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm probably the same age as you, and similarly counting on past skills - it's what lets me use AI to produce things that aren't slop.