The plumber obviously. Not everyone needs to know how to be a plumber, but a plumber should know how to be a plumber

danielbln 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Im a software engineer and know how to be a software engineer, yet I find LLMs quite helpful. Why should a plumber be any different.

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daveguy 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Because if a plumber moves fast and breaks things, I've got shit all over the place.

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enraged_camel 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That, and also the plumber loses their license. So perhaps the solution is professional licensing for software engineers.

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bigfishrunning 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I feel like a licencing process for software engineers would

A) test lots of skills that are common but not universal. I'm thinking javascript trivia here, where I don't write any javascript in my professional capacity as a software engineer; but there are many people who think Software Engineer == Javascript Programmer

B) shine too much of a light on the fact that this industry is full of people who demand high salaries but can't program their way out of a paper bag

	▲	26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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davidkhess 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think that's coming regardless. AI just might be the perfect storm to bring the timeline in considerably.

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c-hendricks 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Engineer is a protected title in Canada after all

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dfee 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

the question was rhetorical. but, since you responded – do you think that there are limits to who can or should use ai? if the plumber's use of ChatGPT improved outcomes, isn't that preferable?

some knowledge is likely "cached" in the plumber. maybe he doesn't ask the same question twice. i'm sympathetic to the plumber, but i think your concerns of erosion of knowledge or skill are worth pushing on further.

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jessetemp an hour ago | parent [-]

> do you think that there are limits to who can or should use ai?

I don't think there should be imposed limits, but there might be an upper bound where expertise becomes atrophied by depending on AI too much.

> if the plumber's use of ChatGPT improved outcomes, isn't that preferable?

In the short term sure, and maybe even in the long term for the customer. I think the risk to the plumber is losing some of their expertise by outsourcing to AI. But who knows, maybe the plumber has excellent memory and only accumulates knowledge each time they use AI.

Some of the article is lost in the plumber example. I doubt plumbers are spending much time exploring new ways of solving problems, and might even benefit from having a narrower range of outcomes. Other fields that require both expertise and novel solutions will be at a disadvantage if they become more homogenized by depending on AI. Not only is the range of solutions reduced, but getting there is faster, so people end up in a local maxima. Maybe they get stuck there, maybe not, but that's the risk I see.

You don't imagine any long term risks by outsourcing expertise to AI?

	▲	dfee 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I do, but again, it was a rhetorical question; a paradoxical thought experiment.

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pixl97 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Which part of being a plumber? Was the house installed with something non-typical? Would you rather have them take an additional 30 minutes looking up their technical manual?

Without further knowledge of what was going on it's hard to say why they used ChatGPT.

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b2ccb2 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Would you rather have them take an additional 30 minutes looking up their technical manual?

Yes

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NiloCK 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You know that plumbers charge by the hour, right?

	▲	neetle 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		How do you know ChatGPT is referencing the right information if you need to look it up in a manual?