Asklemmy@lemmy.mlbyunderscores@lemmy.zip
2 months

Which career path is not ruined by AI?

English

I’m kind of sick of being a dev. I hate AI with a passion.

I hate the hallucinations, I hate slop, I hate megacrops, I hate the environmental impacts, I hate the massive costs. I could go on but you get the picture.

At work I often times have to review vibe code slop from people who clock in 9 to 5 and don’t give a fuck (I respect that, I just wish your fucking code wasn’t slop)

I’m sick of it, I’m sick of hearing about AI tooling or new models or bro agentic actions bro based on your documentation bro.

I want to switch careers, so which career is not ruined by AI?

112
    • Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2 months

      Join us, become a tradie. Get a company vehicle. Work with your hands. Become enough of an expert in your trade that you can tell customers to go fuck themselves if they’re dicks. Have every company in the area be desperate to hire you because every trade is short handed. Work with people who barely understand the concept of a computer. Spend half of every paycheck on milwalkee packout tool boxes. Never have to work with AI again.

      My preference is HVAC-R but plumber or electrician are also good choices. Building automation may seem attractive but then you’re getting close to the AI danger zone again.

      • ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world
        2 months

        A couple of thoughts on this as a union electrician: for starters AI is absolutely having an (arguably negative) impact on manpower fulfillment. In my area the massive expansion of data centers is causing a manpower shortage for all projects not funded by massive tech companies. This is complicated because it’s inflating income for tradesmen due to demand, but it’s also pressuring workers into ridiculous schedules (think 4x10s, 2x8s, and most Sundays) and is forcing contractors that aren’t running data center work to completely rework their payment structure and bid practices. Many of these sites are also a 1-2 hour commute for a large number of tradies. A lot of these guys have been gaslit for decades into thinking working more OT somehow makes them a better person.

        Beyond that, while I haven’t personally seen it yet AI will absolutely begin worming its way into design; a process already riddled with issues and errors largely due to time constraints. Clients are going to want work done faster and cheaper, which will pressure design teams into using AI tools in the name of expediency, which will lead to more errors in the construction process, leading to inflated costs and likely problematic installations.

        That’s not even getting into the future of AI robotics which absolutely will be impacting our tradesmen directly in the near future.

        It’s coming for us too.

      • Des [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2 months

        i went into a dying trade in my 20s ugh and stuck with it now i’m too old to start a new one outside of maybe CDL. so yeah make sure you are physically up to it first (i am in very good shape for my age and look 10 years younger but i would be obliterated by the multiple year “break in” apprentice period again and likely would just get in a fist fight with someone trying to “break me” and destroy them and go to prison or vice versa)

        • Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2 months

          Maybe I just skipped it because I was a factory tech for a while but there was no “breaking” in my experience. The worst we have is a tendancy to throw aprentices into being full techs a bit too quick sometimes.

          • Des [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            2 months

            i’m sure it varies place to place, might have something to do with where i reside

            i have family that could fast track me into commercial HVAC tech (which i could absolutely handle) and skip the grunt work/crawlspace/installation stuff but they are a bit too far away for me to leverage the connection

            • Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              2 months

              Yeah, that’s probably a lot of it. Around me everywhere is so short handed that companies will bend over backwards to get/keep people. Beating up on newbies is a great way for them to have no employees because those newbies could just as easily get a job at a dozen other outfits the next day.

              Also, I hate to tell you this but, commercial doesn’t necissarily keep you out of crawlspaces. It’s more rare but the few crawlspaces that you do wind up having to deal with wind up being much bigger (and not in the good way).

      • ch00f@lemmy.world
        2 months

        Ironically, the three trades you listed are in high demand right now specifically because of the rapid rollout of the data centers needed to power AI.

    • ashenone@lemmy.ml
      2 months

      AI will never be able to throw bricks at cops. Something to consider

        • Derpenheim@lemmy.zip
          2 months

          The settlement money from the city after I get my eyes blown out by “less lethal” rounds tends to cover it.

            • Derpenheim@lemmy.zip
              2 months

              Im not sure if this a meme or an accusation. But I am not, neither the one in Germany or Arkansas.

              • msrb711@feddit.org
                2 months

                It just so happened that in Stuttgart there were protests and police in fact did blow one guy’s eye out of the socket in a very similar way you said.

                I thought that you’re referring to that.

    • peanuts4life@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2 months

      I did this 9 years ago. I make 2/3rds of what I did in software, but I don’t regret it. pivoted to environmental work. My job satisfaction is like, a thousand percent better.

      • hesh@quokk.auEnglish
        2 months

        Can you say any more about the type of environmental work?

        • peanuts4life@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          2 months

          I started over doing entry level spray tech work treating exotic plants through americorps and worked my way up. I do a lot of field data collection and gis work now. So, I still utilize my old software skills. I work for my local government doing environmental land management.

          GIS is definitely a software adjacent job that is utilized a lot in land management. But that isn’t the initial route I took. I really did just kind of started over.

    • Frenchgeek@lemmy.ml
      2 months

      I’m a lathe operator. No AI there yet. And my lathe runs Linux too…

      • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
        2 months

        Inference of 3D models exists. Combined with a rule deck of what the machine is capable of (i.e. so tools aren’t broken) I think you could be very close to “prompt to object” prototyping flows — if they don’t already exist.

        Still might need a pair of hands to clean up.

        Now, how many botched tries are people willing to to pay the material cost of, who knows?

    • Aerosol3215@piefed.caEnglish
      2 months

      “AI can’t replace you but an AI salesman can convince your boss to replace you will AI.”

    • GreatWhiteBuffalo41@slrpnk.netEnglish
      2 months

      I was going to say my industry, sewer and water but now they’re forcing cameras with AI in them into our with vehicle to “save on insurance.” More like spy on us and figure out why we’re messing around with one fire hydrant so long.

      I hate it here.

      • PhoenixDog@lemmy.world
        2 months

        I’m a local truck driver for a smallish local trucking company. My company installed new dash cams with both internal and external cameras. Every truck I know has at the internal camera at least covered in tape, if not removed completely (Mine is gone completely). If my company required the internal cameras, at least half the fleet would likely quit and it would be catastrophic for the company.

        One of the perks of the job is being alone and just chilling out most of the day. You don’t get to watch me.

          • PhoenixDog@lemmy.world
            2 months

            I have coals in the fire for unionizing my industry. Waiting until later this year where I have a better financial situation as a backup plan in case I need to do it unemployed.

            But when I’m done, my friends and co-workers will be unionized.

    • Boneses@lemmy.zip
      2 months

      Locksmithing/access control is an industry that is sorely lacking new people going into it and the only interaction I have with AI is from one coworker in marketing for the company who uses chatgpt to write her emails. I definitely don’t make as much as my friends who are programmers though.

    • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
      2 months

      I’m an electrical engineer and I deal mostly with medical equipment. Not even this field is safe. People are going to die.

      • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2 months

        Architecture is the other one that worries me. I don’t like the idea of unknowingly walking around in a building that was designed by AI. I work with AI and it can’t even be trusted to write a blog post correctly, let alone design a building that’s safe. And I know if I’m thinking of that now, it means someone else has already thought of and attempted it at least 6 months ago.

      • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2 months

        You’re joking me right? I’m pretty sure this is actively happening. they’re going to put the kids in individual tubes with iPads and a toilet

        • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
          2 months

          That’s so bad for a child’s development. A computer can’t guide a kid’s hand to practice fine motor skills. It can’t impart social skills to help kids interact with each other. It can’t help kids revolve conflicts with each other, or handle behaviors that require a human touch. Imagine a couple kids fighting because they can’t share - what’s a computer gonna do? A kid can just ignore its instructions. What’s to stop a kid from physically attacking a robo-nanny or whatever fresh hell gets developed in this field?

          I work with kids with difficult behaviors. There are ethical boundaries we need to be aware of. Will a robo-nanny be imparted with those rules? How accountable would it be if it did something ethically questionable? What will it be trained on - actual knowledge of children’s psychology (in which case, using a robot at all should be discounted right off, as children thrive on human interaction)? Or will it be trained on what parents/teachers have already been doing, which would inevitably result in being trained on outdated techniques that don’t follow updates in science? If a robot thinks spanking, isolation, or withholding food is okay, that’d be extremely troubling. There’s so much that could go wrong, and knowing this tech isn’t being designed with ethics in mind makes this whole endeavor terrifying.

          Are parents going to be comfortable with their kids being alone in a room without an adult? A group of kids could simply band together to lock the robot in a closet or something and let chaos reign. They could figure out how to power it down, or throw things at it until it stops functioning. A kid having a tantrum can be a powerful force, potentially injuring other children in the act, and I highly doubt a robot alone could handle that situation effectively. Where I work it can take a team of adults with blocking pads, and coordination with even more adults to clear other students from the area. Sometimes those other kids are playing games and don’t want to leave, and it takes a trusted adult to convince them that yeah, no, we need to move now. Which brings us to the relationship the teachers have with the students, and how it is crucial to gaining what’s called “instructional control,” which basically means, “this kid will listen to your instructions.” Can a robot foster that? Do we want a robot to be able to foster that? I don’t like the idea of kids personifying machines to that extent, and we’re quickly learning how damaging (literally, it can cause brain damage) that can be for young minds.

          I could go on and on, but suffice to say this whole topic is an ethical clusterfuck.

        • ChristerMLB@piefed.socialEnglish
          2 months

          Not my experience, at least not here in Norway – in fact, there’s been a pretty big backlash against the digitalization of childhood in schools and kindergartens, so I’d be very surprised if there’s any increasing pressure on us to use computers at all with the children. A colleague of mine put on some movies a handful of times in December, and even that caused some concerned messages from parents.

          • Sequence5666@lemmy.world
            2 months

            Unfortunately the countries with high population and public education being negligible, have really low pay.

            I heard Norway and Sweden kindergarten teachers get 120,000 USD ! that sounds great.

            • ChristerMLB@piefed.socialEnglish
              2 months

              hehe, I wish, but no, the starting salary is more like $55 000, increasing to about $65 000 as you get more experience.

              • Sequence5666@lemmy.world
                2 months

                oh no. That does sound low. But i do believe if your interest lies in teaching it brings you joy.

                Can someone in their late twenties start teaching in nordic schools? Or do they have to begin studying for 2+ diploma courses?

                • ChristerMLB@piefed.socialEnglish
                  2 months

                  It’s a three year bachelor’s degree to become a kindergarten teacher in Norway. You can work in kindergarten without that education, but then you’ll be more of an assistant and your salary will be even lower.

                  You’d also have to learn Norwegian, of course, unless you can get a job at one of the very few english-language international kindergartens.

    • Zeusz13@lemmy.world
      2 months

      Anything that’s based on physical work or human contact. Trades, medical/social work, psychology, emergency workers…

        • Zeusz13@lemmy.world
          2 months

          That is the equivalent of saying “we don’t need doctors since we can put bandaids on wounds”

          Psychology is about a lot more that what LLMs can do

          • Teh@sh.itjust.works
            2 months

            Correct, we don’t need Doctors for every scrape in the exact same way that I can explain a social situation to a LLM and it can help by referencing back to published literature on that particular topic, suggesting clear guidelines as to how to move forward. Sure there are also broken arms and cancer exists, but the base level (and moving up the chain) is absolutely coming for Psych work.

    • JadenSmith@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2 months

      Prostitution.

      I am not saying it’s the ideal career choice for most people, however it isn’t something ruined by AI…
      And there are opportunities to progress into a madam or pimp. Plus you get a funky hat with a feather, I’m unsure how this process goes though (I would imagine there must be some sort of application process for the hat).

    • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
      2 months

      I feel ya. But the pendulum will probably swing back the other way soon and we’ll have a ton of companies hiring to undo/replace slop code. That’s how it has been for previous coding fads, anyway.

      • Greyscale@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        2 months

        I’m so tired of my skill and income being beholden to the whims of bullshit artists though.

    • backalleycoyote@lemmy.today
      2 months

      Day training and rescue. You could probably get AI and a robot to teach Pavlovian conditioning in a controlled environment (screen shows symbol, dog gives appropriate response, machine dispenses treat), but behavior modification, leash training in different environments, manners, social conditioning around other dogs/people/animals? A substantial number of humans can’t even train their own dogs to sit, much less behave in public. That’s why I have a job.

    • nothingworked@sh.itjust.works
      2 months

      live performer in circus will be safe (for some time) seriously, you’ve seen how this works, suddenly creativity can be achieved with little bit of randomness robots which should help us in menial tasks are surprisingly taking over art and creative things i mean it will take a while to fully take over but a lesson learnt is that you just need to throw in huge data to make it look wise and inteligent

    • rabber@lemmy.caEnglish
      2 months

      I work in a datacenter. I rack servers, I look after the cooling system, the generators, the ups’s, etc. I won’t ever be replaced by AI. Without me there is no AI. And I barely interact with it. I play with toys all day.

      The environmental impacts still bother me. But IT has always been wasteful, even before AI. I hate recycling days when I see exactly how much plastics, styrofoam and metals are going to the dump.

      • sploosh@lemmy.world
        2 months

        Previously the equation was trying to get as much processing out of every kilowatt-hour, now the equation is trying to use as much energy as possible. The impact of AI eclipses IT loads from before by a massive margin, and because of the theory behind it will never, ever do any better than it is right now. The environmental impact should bother you because it’s massive and getting bigger.

        And you’re helping set it up and keep it going. I know what it’s like to run a datacenter, I did it for a decade and a half. I’m not going to say I’m making more money now, but I do sleep much better.

        • rabber@lemmy.caEnglish
          2 months

          My datacenter doesn’t host AI. Most of my servers process data coming from the square kilometer array in Australia. We’re looking for aliens

          Problem is, cost of living is so extremely high where I live and I don’t know what else I would do to make enough money to stay here. I’m really good at this job, and I don’t have very many other talents

          It could be a lot worse too. Our cooling system is a closed loop so we aren’t using fuck tons of water like newer datacenters. In the winter we can mostly get away with air cooling from outside air. And the power in my city is all from hydro dams

          • sploosh@lemmy.world
            2 months

            So when you said “Without me there is no AI,” what were you referring to?