Ask HN: Why won't you be replaced by AI?

AI models are rapidly getting better. The general public still hasn't seen the capabilities of Anthropic's Mythos model, which is already 4 months old at this point.

I've seen many arguments about why certain jobs will always need a "human in the loop", or that certain skills aren't replaceable by LLM's, but I am skeptical of this notion. It seems that if the general intelligence of these models continues to increase, then every job is just a matter of feeding in the right context, designing the right structures for agents to collaborate, having the right verification loops, etc, all of which are difficult to create, but not impossible.

If the improvements in models continue at the pace they have over the next 3 years (reminder, 3 years ago the best model was GPT-4), do you really believe that what you do now will not be done better by a system of LLM-driven agentic harnesses?

5 points | by atleastoptimal 1 hour ago

7 comments

  • torben-friis 23 minutes ago
    LLMs will probably get to a point where anyone who provides a well explained, fully detailed account of what they want can get it.

    My job is safe.

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    • atleastoptimal 21 minutes ago
      Is the implication that currently it is rare to get a well-explained, fully detailed account of what someone wants, necessitating you as a "translator" of poorly specified requirements to features that actually solve the problems people are having?

      My question is, is that thing which you are doing, ascertaining the subtle concerns, soliciting requirements, etc. truly out of the range of what an LLM or LLM-guided system could do?

  • ex-aws-dude 59 minutes ago
    Even if we assume extreme case where coding is only done by 99% LLMs in the future

    Who is the best possible person you could hire to operate the LLM?

    Who has a good mental model of what its doing underneath and has the best expertise to direct/guide it?

    IMO no one is better positioned to use these tools than software engineers

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    • atleastoptimal 45 minutes ago
      What if the best "person" to operate an LLM is an LLM itself, or more precisely an agentic loop driven by an LLM? DO you believe this won't be the case?
  • comparedge 1 hour ago
    a single LLM isn't the threat, a thousand coordinated ones are
  • erminpour 1 hour ago
    "AI models are rapidly getting better." How many times are we going to keep hearing this? Give the horse the dang carrot!

    I'm so tired of hearing about AI.

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    • atleastoptimal 45 minutes ago
      >How many times are we going to keep hearing this?

      Until it's no longer true

    • comparedge 57 minutes ago
      ppl said same thing about cloud, smartphones, n the internet dude the signal is usually hidden inside the hype
  • blinkbat 1 hour ago
    No. The only defense is societal.
  • andsoitis 1 hour ago
    ... because I'm not defined solely by "intelligence".
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