Nathan Rambeck

Dude. Elon Musk is on another planet.

Marginal Revolution co-creator @atabarrok says that AI replacing all jobs (which he doesn't think will happen) is a rich man's problem. "People are worried AI is going to do all the jobs. But this means we are going to be fabulously wealthy." "Even without any jobs, just being fabulously wealthy — we'll figure things out. This is the sort of problem you want to have." "This is not like a natural disaster, which destroys wealth. This is a tsunami which creates wealth." "Yes, it could be a tsunami in the sense that it's going to be very dramatic. But it's going to be very dramatic in the sense of like, Santa Claus coming and leaving us stuff under the Christmas tree. That's drama we can handle." "It won't be without problems. But problems where the pie gets bigger are problems we can solve." "It's problems when the pie gets smaller, when we are forced into a zero-sum society of one person versus another, that's when society breaks down." "But not when the pie is getting bigger. We'll figure out ways to make sure everyone gets a decent slice. We can solve the problem of dividing it up with everybody being happy. I'm much less worried about that."

Tactical vs Strategic Programming, and why I'm nervous for juniors: Good programming involves a mix of tactical and strategic decision-making: - Tactical: on the ground, short-term. The soldier doing the fighting. - Strategic: high-view, long-term. The general planning the war. You need to be a tactician to write good code. To choose the right syntax. To figure out the file structure. To figure out how best to test your changes. But you need to be a strategist to build code that lasts. To design the architecture. To automate away problems. To think beyond today. Agents have eaten the tactical part of programming. When you can pay below minimum wage for code, there's no point going into the trenches yourself. But AI cannot code strategically. Agents need someone at the top of the pyramid to tell them what to do. They need oversight. So, a developer's day-to-day job has become 100% strategy. Long-term thinking, all the time. (maybe this is why I'm so tired all the time now) If you identify as a tactical programmer - a code monkey - then you are out of luck. The job has changed. Personally, I like it. I always preferred thinking strategically about code. If you asked me what my job was about, I'd say 'building apps', not 'writing code'. But what makes me nervous is that we've pulled down the only bridge that brought juniors into the industry. We used to train juniors like this: 1. Give them only tactical tasks 2. Let them build up their strategic experience slowly Eventually, they are a good enough strategist that they are no longer a junior. But what happens when all tactical code is written by AI? What is the point of a junior? We obviously need juniors. We need new lifeblood coming into the industry. We need to leave paths open for extraordinary hires to enrich our companies. But how do we train them? How do you train strategic thinking? These are the questions I'm thinking about. I'd love to know your thoughts.

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