I've been going through an identity crisis for a year now as I realize more and more that nearly the entirety of what I know comes down to arcane incantations producing transpilation instead of magic. My tech career was just converting specs from clients and employers into machine code, with extra steps.
To move now at the speed of thought and let AI complete whatever tedium was preventing me from getting real work done has been a revelation.
To the point that I fantasize about the day I can leave tech behind and get back to the human experience. No longer drowning in the unending workload that demands ever-increasing productivity for the same pay, but finally able to say enough's enough and provide time/money/resources for myself and eventually the community at large outside of the hierarchical economy.
If we can't automate our livelihoods with AI, then we don't have anything.
I guess the thing about that process is, you inevitably complete an incomplete spec. There are always fine details that will never be decided until they're required to complete the implementation.
The expansion of knowledge is what ends societies and erodes civilization but produces religion.
Perspective of the religions is that I is the devil, the unaffiliated individual's perspective as opposed to we. All the religions teach fasting is abstaining from I want and pursuing we need.
We drive ourselves to the truth of what matters by eliminating waste as much as possible for 6 weeks
Try to define a specific item like the closest cat to you so that anyone, just from reading the definition, can recognize that cat anywhere. You could write a whole book and not be done. Or you could stamp the cat with some id (symbols) in and refer to that. As long as that id is not repeated (rule), the system is ok.
Formalism is defining stuff, and add rigid rules that are consistent with each other. Once that done, it allows anyone to reach the same thinking location as the original person. Formalism is a knowledge transfer tool.
> My tech career was just converting specs from clients and employers into machine code, with extra steps.
If all you did was that, I’m quite sad for you as yourself should have automated your job to remove that tedium.
I would describe my job as designing a system that respect all the constraints of the situation. Some of them comes from specs, some comes from the technical platform, and some are just future possible interactions. The system is what I modify, coding is just how I do it.
When I see people abandon their work to AI, the other consequence is that they abandon their control of the system as well. They can’t explain how it works, what’s its reliability, and whether it can be improved (or part of it reused in another context).