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A comment on PostgreSQL maintainer Simon Riggs has died in a small airplane crash. Parent comment

Re:PostgreSQL maintainer Simon Riggs has died in a small air... by rglullis on Saturday March 30, 2024 @07:30AM (#39873839)
My translator friend speaks no Japanese. She used to work with English, German and Portuguese. The fact that translators are still not Professional-level (yet?) is no consolation for the thousands of other professionals like her. She retired already.

> It can't replace a human.

If it provides enough leverage to today to make one person 20x more productive, then it is effectively replacing 19 humans. When it is effective to make one employee 200x more efficient, it will replace 199 humans.

And if you have enough hubris to think you are always going to be the lucky one out of the chopping block, it's not for lack of warning.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:PostgreSQL maintainer Simon Riggs has died in a small air... by simion314 on Saturday March 30, 2024 @07:40AM (#39873897)
>If it provides enough leverage to today to make one person 20x more productive,

But this is not reality. Is this happening for your work? Or you read this somewhere ?

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Re:PostgreSQL maintainer Simon Riggs has died in a small air... by rglullis on Saturday March 30, 2024 @12:10PM (#39876162)
Sorry, my mistake. Replace "today" with "someday".

For "today", I've seen good engineers solving specific tasks in a third of the time already, but I won't make specific claims about absolute productivity multipliers.

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Re:PostgreSQL maintainer Simon Riggs has died in a small air... by simion314 on Saturday March 30, 2024 @03:06PM (#39877650)
>For "today", I've seen good engineers solving specific tasks in a third of the time

Specific is the important word here. Some boring tasks that can be automated in all jobs will be automated though you still need to check the AI. I assume no competent developer was fired because of that productivity boost in that specific task

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Re:PostgreSQL maintainer Simon Riggs has died in a small air... by rglullis on Saturday March 30, 2024 @03:37PM (#39877901)
You don't need to "fire" anyone for AI to cause a significant impact. All AI needs to do is to allow companies postpone hiring more people.

I really don't understand why you are being so obtuse about this. Do you honestly think that you can make the argument that software development (as an industry) is somehow immune to automation?

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