I think the base requirement to compete will keep going up. We already have AI models that can debug and audit code better than the best humans.
You used to have a career as a software engineer or devops person if you were good at debugging. Today, I challenge you to take any past production outages, toss the traces into Claude Fable, and see if it finds the bug faster than humans can.
I think this is the way the rest of white collar labor goes.
I “try your suggested experiment” several times per month at work. Usually when I’m on call.
It’s great at being a search engine for our docs and communications. It can also find bugs quickly in small repos with static analysis and coverage tools.
But when it comes to larger projects or interconnected systems, the time it takes to correct its “assumptions” is often longer than the time it takes to solve the entire problem myself.
He was quoting the claim you made. Shouldn't you have your own justification for it? Which tests did you run with both Fable as well as the best human programmers?
Honestly? Not really, not since Fable came out. There's been a bunch of times it needed to ask for context, and I needed to deploy some additional tracing at its request.
(There have been a few times where it has refused to debug due to safeguards. This is actually the biggest problem.)
For some roles, I agree but I also think that there will be many new-ish roles that will have lower requirements right down to being a warm body capable of walking and talking. The lower requirements will be possible because these roles will essentially be proxies for AI agents that need a human to go somewhere and do something in the physical world, whether that's resetting a breaker or just being a human face and voice delivering a message.
And yes, before anyone brings it up, I've read Manna and if you haven't you probably should[0] but I don't think it will be as dystopian or utopian as that. Humanoid robots would obviously replace some of the proxy need but there will still be a lot of things that only a living human can do even if it's just purely for legal and regulatory reasons.
I also think there will be a lot more roles that are purely human in nature and which will have an entirely different set of requirements but that's a different topic.
Of course. For a great deal of software, the main skills needed are vaguely speaking the jargon so you can understand Claude, and doing manual debugging.
Comments
I think the base requirement to compete will keep going up. We already have AI models that can debug and audit code better than the best humans.
You used to have a career as a software engineer or devops person if you were good at debugging. Today, I challenge you to take any past production outages, toss the traces into Claude Fable, and see if it finds the bug faster than humans can.
I think this is the way the rest of white collar labor goes.
I'd love to see one someday.
Did you try my suggested experiment? Which issues did Fable take longer than a human to diagnose once you started to describe the symptoms?
I “try your suggested experiment” several times per month at work. Usually when I’m on call.
It’s great at being a search engine for our docs and communications. It can also find bugs quickly in small repos with static analysis and coverage tools.
But when it comes to larger projects or interconnected systems, the time it takes to correct its “assumptions” is often longer than the time it takes to solve the entire problem myself.
He was quoting the claim you made. Shouldn't you have your own justification for it? Which tests did you run with both Fable as well as the best human programmers?
I see -- so you'd rather not know if it works in your situation?
"I see the problem now - wait, let me ask some clarifying questions."
...you can quibble about the chat transcript, but it spits out answers pretty reliably. "But you don't have to take my word for it".
Ive dealt with tons of bugs Claude couldnt recognize. Have you not?
Honestly? Not really, not since Fable came out. There's been a bunch of times it needed to ask for context, and I needed to deploy some additional tracing at its request.
(There have been a few times where it has refused to debug due to safeguards. This is actually the biggest problem.)
For some roles, I agree but I also think that there will be many new-ish roles that will have lower requirements right down to being a warm body capable of walking and talking. The lower requirements will be possible because these roles will essentially be proxies for AI agents that need a human to go somewhere and do something in the physical world, whether that's resetting a breaker or just being a human face and voice delivering a message.
And yes, before anyone brings it up, I've read Manna and if you haven't you probably should[0] but I don't think it will be as dystopian or utopian as that. Humanoid robots would obviously replace some of the proxy need but there will still be a lot of things that only a living human can do even if it's just purely for legal and regulatory reasons.
I also think there will be a lot more roles that are purely human in nature and which will have an entirely different set of requirements but that's a different topic.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120224063109/http://marshallbr...
Of course. For a great deal of software, the main skills needed are vaguely speaking the jargon so you can understand Claude, and doing manual debugging.