Yes to be clear, I'm saying between now and 2025 is the start of Transformative AI. It will be at the point it's ready to start making disruptions. 2025 and beyond society will begin to feel those effects through large scale automation and such.

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edit: I want to clarify this line too, as I don't think I explained it well in the post

>In 2025, what feels like 5 years TODAY (2022) will be 1.25 years.

Right now, 2022, we base our expectations of the rate of progression on the past. So 5 years of progress would be 2017-2022.

2022 - 2025 will be the next 5 years of progress condensed into ~2.5 years.

In 2025, the next 5 years of progress will take place within 1.25 years, relative to to the exponential rate from 2017-2022.

We base our predictions off the past.

I should've mentioned the AI effect isn't my theory, it's just a part inside of my theory haha.

>I wondered why the Gato paper (from what I read of it) didn't try any cross domain exercises. e.g. get a robot arm to play an atari game.

I believe this is being done by something with google, and likely others. I'm not sure why specifically they didn't do it with Gato a while back now, but it is definitely being done with other models.

I have a bit of a theory on this actually. It's a combination of a couple things. The AI effect being the most obvious, where people will say AI can't do something, and when it does they dismiss it because it's just computer calculations. A moving goal post of sorts.

Another reason is it's still in its infancy. Yes, if you know the proper search terms for specific AI you can find some stuff. Like go ask a random person if they know what Codex is, or Chinchilla. If you don't follow closely or care about AI and tech, you probably won't have heard of this unless someone you know is very interested in it and talks about it. Even then, I have some friends I talk to this stuff about but they aren't super interested in it so they don't go and look into things too much.

The last reason, some people might think it's borderline a conspiracy theory but hear me out. Big tech companies and professionals close to the creation of AI are well aware of how the general public would react to "Hey check out this AI, only a few more steps until it obliterates your usefulness at your current job" so they actively are championing this stuff as a tool to help people be productive. They are navigating everything by treading lightly until they are ultimately at the point of releasing some transformative AI and then there's no going back. There's no policies to be made quick enough to keep up with the advances and hold them back. The last thing tech companies want at this point is to be stifled on the road to AGI by some policy makers trying to save jobs. If they can get to the point of being able to bring down enough sectors quickly, it will be too late to do anything about it.

We're talking about the most brilliant minds in the world, the ones in charge of aligning AI properly. Of course they have to set everything up before they can go for the spike.

Another person that thinks this AI just parses images and combines them. A lot of people really don't comprehend the magic going on here.

Just saw this post now, posted same day as mine here asking specifically about programming. A lot of the answers seem to suggest there's nothing to worry about within the decade or longer.

I was basically asking if it's basically over for anyone looking to get into entry level careers in programming/web dev. Like is it worth it to start learning it now to find a career in it a few years from now. I made the comparison to graphic designers not worrying, then suddenly outraged, but programmers say their work is much more difficult for an AI to do.

I think this will happen for everyone though, because they take pride in their careers and the ability of AI to do it more efficiently hits a nerve and creates denial. This is going to happen with every sector.

Personally I think programming should be the main focus. Automating it, especially fully automating it, will accelerate every other sector. The faster the transition, the larger the sense of urgency placed on governments, the softer we get through the transition to some form of UBI or whatever this revolution brings. I think there's some very intelligent people that have planned this to reduce suffering among the population. I hope so anyway, because governments will drag their feet to avoid making decisions.

Hmm, I respect your opinion on this, but I do disagree on some of it.

Needing someone "specialized" in inputting English text prompts (very likely voice to text soon with Whisper) is exactly what this tech is conquering.

Different, but only kind of, text to image. You can just be as specific as you want. You can put "a castle on a hill with a dragon" or you can put "a medieval European style castle with flying buttresses extending down from a walkway above a sprawling fortified wooden gate, situated on top of a grassy hill covered in poppies, surrounded by a dark blue watered mote, with a fire breathing dragon that has golden scales shimmering in rays of sunlight peaking through dark billowing storm clouds" and then from there further edit details to get exactly what you want.

With upcoming voice to text, and an assumption on my part, a friendly user interface, I can't see how making the front end of a website exactly how you want. I'm not very familiar with backend stuff so I'll admit I can't speak much to that, and security and such.

I really have no idea, none of us do at this point. But I just imagine whoever is telling the programmer what they want could describe it to the AI just as easily and get next to real time results.

>Also, who is creating these AI systems? Programmers!

I realize this, but that's far from an entry level position that's easily expendable. I'm focused on those that are beginning a career more so than those that are in the industry and highly skilled.

Sorry, I know what you're saying. My question was posed as "without AGI" as in between now and whenever AGI becomes a reality, if coding actually writing code from text prompts gets simple enough then anyone could do it.

I really see no reason an AGI would be needed for that, a narrower AI that specializes in text to code would be more than sufficient. You don't need the AI to physically go and meet/discuss with clients.

Maybe we're just in disagreement on the level of AI needed to do enough automation toward programming to cause layoffs in the industry.

I think by the time the tools become ubiquitous, new and improved tools will be released at an every increasing rate. The end game is eventual full automation, but that could be a long ways away.

Yes but from the company's financial angle, if they can get the same output as today, for half the cost, that's just as much of an option as twice the output at the same cost.

Obviously it isn't that simple of course. But the reasoning can be applied to any ratio. The company might want to keep production levels the same and invest the money elsewhere.

Exactly, and it will lower the skill level required to do it, no? So more competition and lower wage?

I'm looking at this from the perspective of entry level, not highly skilled engineer.

Fewer programmers than currently required?

>You can literally change one symbol in codebase and it fails or has bug.

But the new Codex checks and corrects itself?

But I know it's not the best comparison, and I understand there's much more to programming than just typing out code. But it's more a question about efficiency of each programmer will in turn require less programmers to get a task completed. I don't think high skill positions are going to be axed quite yet. But entry level positions? I just don't see how they will be as plentiful as they are today.

Even if Codex won't be sufficient today with the current model being released soon. These AI have a track record of starting slow, then getting impressive then mind boggling in a matter of a year, then every few months it's updated and improved.

Again, it doesn't have to be full automation, just enough to replace the majority of entry level positions.

>It won't speed up the singularity. All techs seem to follow some form of exponential curve

I understand what you mean. But when you zoom in on an exponential curve it's often made up of smaller S curves.

Increasing the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of programming, while reducing the cost should theoretically give a boost to the S curves across different sectors.

The nature of an S curve is it will plateau for a while before accelerating again, a large enough upward S curve near the end of the exponential curve could be a sign of an impending take off.

Sorry this is hard to explain without drawing a diagram.

I feel as though this could be a signal toward much closer transformative AI than expected by most people. Maybe not the singularity yet, but a revolution nonetheless.

How many programmers do you think will be able to transition into software development? There's a lot of web developers and other lower skill programmers out there. Like tons and tons of them today, I feel like a lot of them won't make the cut transitioning to higher skill programming and engineering.

I think directly increasing efficiency for programmers has the effect of accelerating everything you say is "on the other hand"

But I'll ask you this:

Say this increases programmers efficiency by 100%. So now 1 programmer is able to get done as much work as 2 programmers. You can say "great, now they can get twice as much work done, so the company will get double the value"

But if that's truly the case, why wouldn't that company, today, just hire more programmers? Is it a matter of cost? So would it not make sense that a company could also have half as many programmers if they do 2x the amount of productivity?

But how long would it take to train someone to get the prompts down? Has to be less time than it takes to learn a programming language. It effectively removes the part of learning programming that most entry levels are paid decent salaries for.

I don't think it's a matter of replacing all or most. It's a question of how competitive and unskilled entry level positions become.

That's pretty much my question. What effect will this have in the near term (<5y) on entry level programming and web development jobs. If that's still a viable career or if the writing is on the wall.

Should anyone aspire to be a web developer anymore? I feel like the answer is no.

On the short term (5 to 10 years) this is pretty much the same feeling I have toward this subject.

I have a feeling the low-skill plentiful careers available now in programming/development are going to disappear. I wouldn't be surprised if it's nearly over night. What company would continue to pay millions of dollars a year for wages when anyone with basic English will be able to do their job? I'm not worried about the higher skilled engineers yet. I'm worried about entry level positions.

Even if those positions don't disappear, I imagine there just won't be many new entry positions, companies will already be over staffed.

I'm saying this as someone that started to learn programming wanting to do a career shift. I was interested it my whole life but went a different direction, and I'm bored and feel at a dead end in my career. I was started learning web development earlier this year but feel like it's a wasted effort. It'd be 2 years before I finish learning enough and trying to land a job, 2 years from now I feel like that job won't exist.

Decades eh? I'm probably a little less conservative than that. My feeling is large corporations will take advantage of it it as quickly as possible. It could also have a profound effect on society. I think of it as the industrial revolution, condensed into a week.

But who knows.

>Btw, my time horizon for AGI that's capable of doing most economically valuable tasks is 2030.

We're in the same boat. Realistically, my question could be applied to basically any sector. Just a matter of when. But yes, of course if it's 2030 before a possible disruption of full automation it doesn't matter what career someone chooses.

But it's impossible to think that far ahead, and the fact programming could very likely be the main subject in the crosshairs for various reasons (it's the end goal for AI?), I'm apprehensive about further studying. I'm not in high school, it's more of a second career situation and time is of the essence to me, as in I don't want to gamble on the wrong horse.

At the risk of sounding disparaging, I've found so far over the timeline of the past year or so, most people with a "threatened" industry over estimate their skills to be unreplaceable by AI, and rather it's an effective tool to increase output. It wasn't until text to image suddenly gave anyone that can type a prompt the ability to make beautiful art that graphic designers started to feel the looming storm.

Personally after consideration, I think the most genius sector to disrupt would be programming. Not because it's the easiest (programming has a lot more involved than just typing code), and not so AI can just write its own code and self improve (probably a ways out from that). But The reason I think it's the best to go first is because it would have the greatest effect across all industries. We don't want to sit around wondering when our jobs are all going to disappear, we would want it to happen to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Programmers are the foundation to basically any business that has any aspect of tech involved. It'd be the biggest blow, which is a good thing in the long run.

But I don't know. I really do wonder if it's a career worth starting soon. It feels like wack-a-mole for anyone trying to plan a career now because any sector could be disrupted in a month.

Do you envision the "text to anything" AI we see cropping up as incapable as it is now? I have to assume the next iteration of GPT or whatever will be markedly improved. I think that comes down to the question of how long will it be until someone can enter text like "make a program that does so and so" and it does it. Give another prompt to edit any undesirable results, and then you finish.

I know this is a total oversimplification of programming, but I certainly don't think it requires full AGI to do that sort of thing. I don't know how large your team is, but well before AGI could probably replace most of them if Codex evolves at a rate anything like other AI that uses this approach.

But the real question I'm asking isn't really about the skilled members of your team over the next 5 to 10 years. I'm asking about right now, are the prospects of beginning a career or schooling to learn programming assumed to be fruitful? There's no denying programmers are skilled workers now, but will this tech open the flood gate for anyone with the ability to do basic text prompts? That would effectively reduce the amount of skilled programmers by a great percentage, making the skilled positions much more competitive and the unskilled ones much lower pay.

Appreciate the comment, it's well thought out.

The first point is often brought up in regards to the singularity, though I personally think it's the least likely outcome. Comparing the upcoming revolution when transformative AI starts knocking out employment sector after sector to the industrial revolution? Just doesn't compute in my mind. There's a big difference between machines being operated, and machines operating themselves. Not only operating themselves, but doing it better than humans in every measurable way.

But the real point that matters here is the last point. As it seems we are just sitting and waiting for the first disruption to bring things to a screeching halt. I know text to image gave us a taste of what that can be, but graphic designs (no offence to them) are not essential to today's economy. They are a subset within a non-essential sector (creative arts, more or less).

Programmers however, may be the first realistic sector to see upheaval from AI. I imagine though that it's probably also the most important to be first because it might be the largest domino to move the transition from number 7 to "the one that isn't numbered" in your list.

I suppose that just leaves the burning question we can't answer, which is how long?

I just don't understand how the swathes of lower skilled programming positions won't be obliterated. My argument (if you want to call it that I guess) is not that higher skilled workers will feel the full effect of this, but the lower skilled ones simply won't be able to be reused elsewhere when their job only takes basic prompts. They certainly won't be moving to other countries for work and demand decent pay.

Programmers of all levels are considered skilled works, until an AI reduces the skill needed to basic text prompting. Is it worth it to start a 4 year university course today with the hopes of getting into web development? Today that's considered a skilled position, 4 years from now it might be as trivial as a call center position.