You know what they say about massively consolidated multinational corporations with tens of thousands of employees and millions of square feet in real estate: no one making money there.
There's this weird unspoken assumption in a lot of these HN posts that any layoffs or lack of hiring is due to companies shirking on providing the cushy jobs they owe software engineers. Actually, they hire engineers to get stuff done. If it's true that AI is just a big 'ol scam and it doesn't even work, then I guess we'll see the companies that insist on nothing but the finest artisanily hand-typed organic code rocket to the top of the charts on app downloads, sales, revenue, and market cap.
This is basically how most engineers talk to their managers, politely implying - "can you see how this decision has a short term payoff but a long term consequence?"
Before LLMs I only worked at one place that "only hired seniors and above" and now its the most commonplace thing in the world.
Nobody owes me anything, I already have the skills I need, where will the juniors come from that these companies are going to need in a few years? We don't need extremist stances in either camp, we need balance.
> Nobody owes me anything, I already have the skills I need, where will the juniors come from that these companies are going to need in a few years? We don't need extremist stances in either camp, we need balance.
Seems a bit like asking where the bread will come from, if no-one is forced to bake it.
Yes, this is what hysteria about bread looks like. People have been saying a disaster of the kids not knowing how to bake is coming since the 1800's. Yet, we still have bread.
How exactly will the knowledge of creating software be lost when the claim is that an ubiquitous software creation tool is going to take over the world? Is it going to refuse to emit anything less complex than a todo app?
I've never baked bread in my life and yet, with the right motivation, I'm sure I could learn from the literature and some trial and error alone. In the hypothetical world where bread demand massively exceeds supply, we'd form a guild and incrementally improve from there. Same way we learned it in the first place. Breadmaking wasn't gifted to us by aliens.
Well, that is the point :) we don't fret about where the bread comes from too much, or talk about how we need to act now lest we never have bread again. People want bread, and the price goes up until someone is willing to make bread.
> If it's true that AI is just a big 'ol scam and it doesn't even work, then I guess we'll see the companies that insist on nothing but the finest artisanily hand-typed organic code rocket to the top of the charts on app downloads, sales, revenue, and market cap.
AI works fine to get a vibe coded BS version of the app. No doubt there. But eventually, especially once scale hits your app, it will devolve into an unholy mess of low performance and (extremely) high cost if you do not have a bunch of senior talent able and willing to clean up after the AI mess.
Unfortunately, our capitalist economy only rewards the metrics you mentioned... but by the time the house of cards collapses, either from financial issues stemming from the above or because the tech debt explodes, it's too late to turn the ship around.
And I've even heard rumors of software engineers that don't even write apps or write code that runs on the internet at all. They say some of them don't even use javascript or python! The horror.
Ignoring the gamblers losing money because they lack insider information, the harm is that you changed the incentive for war. It is motivated by money for the gamblers, not military or political objectives. The difference between this and rigged sports gambling is that people die. They die on a whim and they die unnecessarily. I shouldn’t have to explain why people dying is bad.
- we can maybe get some limited information about the likelihood of events through a combination of wisdom of crowds and insider trading
cons:
- gambling addiction ruins lives, beyond a shadow of a doubt. People (often people with financial interest) like to argue this point, but I don't have space to write
- insiders essentially steal money from people betting based on other information. You might argue that those other people should have known. But why bet at all? its irrational. Yet people do it regardless, and they still don't deserve to have their things stolen. Poker where another player can see your cards is a stupid game.
- it clearly, unambiguously signals corruption to all and sundry. Connections let you get rich at the expense of others. Some people might not care as much but I truly think this is the biggest con of them all. Why behave the way we would all wish leaders would, if you have proof other leaders are making it big with no consequences. How would you not feel like a fool, for your morals? We should be making it as easy as possible to do the right thing that benefits all.
- it incentivises terrible behavior. Betting that a war won't happen, or a person won't die, or that there won't be an explosion at a crowded area in downtown x city at y time, is essentially the same as putting a bounty out for somebody to do it. They can bet that it will happen, and then go and make it so, and collect your reward money.
It's a rigged game. If there's a bet that player X will foul player Y, without proper safeguards, player X can bet on himself and then intentionally player player Y. The actual harm is that by the rules of the betting, no one should know the outcome who could also bet on the game, so the losers are being robbed of their money.
In this particular context, it's also possible that there are illicit transfers of money without being immediately noticeable. Bribery could happen at the highest levels with it being very difficult to trace and prosecute.
Like any insider trading you are transferring money from the public to yourself. More interestingly for the prediction market angle: you are leaking secret information by doing that. If you make big trades in anticipation of specific events other market participants can see it. That could be extremely serious if say it endangers a military operation.
If an insider, say a member of the Department of Defense (or War, duh) bets a certain date: they could internally influence the decision to execute on that date rather than possibly a better (earlier?) date that could yield less damage or loss to either side.
If you are not an insider with special info and special access, no matter what you do in the market, you eventually lose to the insiders. So, if you blur the details a bit, you're just giving your money to these people.
The rational move would be to just not participate in a market where insider trading happens. I don't really understand why people aren't avoiding these markets like the plague.
Insiders fleecing dumb people. Then dumb people get pissed their finances are destroyed and they'll never pay off their debt or support a family or attract a mate, and so they go down a rabbit hole of insanity and depression on social media, getting conned by influencers and AI slop and then vote for whatever the rage du jour some grifter politician is selling, or worse they shoot up a school...
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