Don't Believe The AI Hype! Do This Instead...

if they're just itching for an excuse to lay people off and they want to make it politically look good at the company what better Fall Guy than AI well we found out that you know our programmers can be 10 times more productive because of AI technology so we're reducing our Workforce to be more efficient and [Music] lean go anywhere online today and you can find fortune tellers that suddenly have popped up out of nowhere and they can tell you exactly where to go and what's changing in the industry with AI or maybe your leadership at your company you work for has decided to buy into this panic and they're suddenly flipping all their plans on its head changing projects cancelling things firing people because they're wrapped up in the hype and worst of all you've got influencers everywhere telling you if you don't learn technology AB B CDE e all these new AI Technologies you're not a real programmer and you're going to be left behind and you suddenly start wondering is that true do I need to drop everything in my career and jump head first into every AI technology I see or in the future I'm not even going to be able to provide for myself I'm not going to be able to provide for my family well time to chill out a little bit let's look at this rationally I'm making this video today to try to help you look past some of the propaganda the fear and the groups of people that really stand to gain by you panicking about Ai and instead just give you some basic advice I think this is going to be pretty common sense but I think a lot of people are so wrapped up in the buzz they don't really think about it and hopefully that'll help you stay calm and healthy in your career you know if you think back in recent memory the pandemic we just got through no matter which side you fall on whether certain policies passed by our government were legal legal or made sense or not man am I not going to get in the middle of that in this video I think we can all agree that there are some people that used that situation to get power to make money to get control over you and you know you look back in another 20 years and 9/11 it was a similar situation regardless of what you think happened on that day and whether you believe it or not there were definitely people in the government people in Private Industry just employers who made a lot of decisions to use that sort of panicked event to try to gain a lot of influence make a lot of extra money and really get a lot of power over people and even in the software industry if you look as recently as for example when microservices first you know came onto the scene you had books being written about it everywhere you had people being interviewed telling everyone exactly what they need to do with regards to microservices and if they don't suddenly introduce it to their latest product they're not going to be able to scale anymore and no programmers are going to want to work for you anymore and I think we've seen how that's played out there was quite a bit of alarmism in in that whole situation well while AI really has dramatically changed society and it's changing work right now as we're sitting in the middle of this I really want you to just be careful that you don't get caught up in the propaganda and the fear and so today in this video I really hope this helps you by just bringing some common sense some things that I've learned over you know the 26 years I've been in software development and I've seen fads and Technologies change and it can give you some really actionable things that you can do to try to put yourself in the best position in the middle of all this you know this Tempest of a storm of AI and rather than panicking about it just stay calm put the best plans in place that you can and keep moving moving forward with your career so who stands to gain from freaking you out about AI from putting all this fear in you and creating all this urgency well the first group of people is the media whether it's traditional media TV movies magazines newspapers if anybody reads them anymore or YouTubers people on X people with thumbnails and you know click baity titles that want to hijack the emotions inside of you that are worried oh my God you know if if I don't find out about this am I not going to be able to work anymore be very careful those companies can make a lot of money those YouTubers can get a lot of clicks now obviously I'm a YouTuber you should take everything I say with a grain of salt just like everybody else but you know if you look at a thumbnail or a title or a headline or an article and you see really incendiary language in there remember this is a person who's probably trying to make a lot of money they're not necessarily motivated by giving you you know balanced rational advice about how to deal with this whole situation also employers if there's a company out there and they've got let's say 5 10 15% of the workforce that for whatever reason they need to lay people off maybe a project got cancelled maybe they you know partnered with another company and they no longer needs some of the staff if they're just itching for an excuse to lay people off and they want to make it politically look good at the company what better Fall Guy than AI well we found out that you know our programmers can be 10 times more productive because of AI technology so we're reducing our Workforce to be more efficient and lean you know be careful out there because if you start reading press releases if you start seeing emails from your own company's leadership and they start to use AI as a reasoning for why certain you know structural changes are happening in the company that may not necessarily be true it may more just be a convenient excuse also there's a lot of people out there who just want to start up a company and sell it hey you know I I was in a similar situation maybe about 10 years ago I had some really cool product ideas I wanted to create a product I did want to serve a customer base but I also was hoping to eventually sell the company and there's some people out there who don't even care about serving you know the customer base they just want to make a quick buck and if you start a new company today and you put AI in your branding and you know you talk about AI in front of investors there is a lot of people who are getting caught up in this Buzz right now that will be happy to give you a bunch of cash that'll be happy to hook you up with the top Engineers to hire for your company so you know also be careful whenever you're reading anything about you know companies that you could work for or companies that have come up with new products and this new darling you know company with this new Innovative thing they're doing through AI sure AI is incredible and there's a huge list of changes and Technologies it's bringing about but there's also a lot of companies where what AI is doing for them is very minimal and it's just being used you know to Hype it up and so just be careful if you're out there if not to get sucked into the fear and the buzz and the urgency around a company you hear about or an open- Source technology or a new sass platform just because it's got AI in the name and finally tech training compan compies are very motivated to create as many courses and education programs as possible for any new technology come that comes out because ultimately they'll sell more copies of the course or they'll enroll more students and they'll make more money and hey I have nothing against tech training companies I'm not trying to specifically criticize them but I am saying they do stand to gain from if you are so scared about what AI is going to do to your job that in in urgency and Par paranoia and fear you start enrolling in these courses and you start learning these things not because strategically it's the right decision for your job not because you're doing something as part of your work where you have to learn it or you really have chosen I'm going to actually move into some particular AI technology because I've really thought it through you know they stand to gain a lot from let's be honest very emotional knee-jerk reactions from people so how can you use AI without falling prey to fear and propaganda well I think the first thing that you can do that's really smart to consider is to look at AI more as something that you should become a generalist in rather than a specialist these Technologies are going to change so fast there's going to be new players week to week and if you go up on LinkedIn or X there are people whose whole online Persona it seems is just to spam you with this change in Ai and this new product in Ai and they're basically like AI technology you know news aggregators and if you get caught up in reading about that and try to learn all those Technologies at a detailed level you're going to run out of steam you're not going to have the cognitive ability to just hang with it so I would recommend one of the smartest things you can do is don't be ignorant of AI I'm going to talk a little bit more about this in a moment but don't try to go really deep in one particular technology because you may find in 6 months it gets deprecated and there's some other new technology that's really popular and I think we're going to see a lot of people who in fear throw all their energy behind some AI technology that you know this week or this month seems like the most important thing to learn and maybe their company's telling them it's the most important thing to learn but when really they look at their career over the next two five 10 years a lot of these technologies that we're just starting to see emerge right now they may not be there the second thing you can do is really related to what I talked about at the beginning of the video which is don't buy into the sensationalism learn to spot the sensationalism look nobody knows what's going to happen with AI I don't care if it's you know people that work for open AI or it's scientists or researchers they're going to tell you whatever is beneficial to tell you today whatever is going to benefit their strategy what's ever whatever is going to benefit their company sure there may be some truth in that and I like to think most people aren't out there specifically trying to deceive you but let's be honest about human nature and let's be honest about business you know if you've ever worked for a company and you've seen your own leadership make unethical decisions or be deceptive what leads you to believe that these big players in Ai and I won't name all the companies but I already named one you know many of the others uh what leads you to believe that there aren't people who also work for those companies that are just as motivated to be misleading and just as motivated to be sensationalist so that's the second thing you can do if you want to really have a healthy career and you really want to move forward as all this this AI change is happening and not freak out about it is start to take a step back every time you see an article every time you see a post from an influencer every time you see a new course available or even your friend tells you something oh I saw this cool new AI technology try to take a step back and think for yourself is this really as shocking and Urgent and you know do I really need to throw all my energy into learning it or is it just an interesting fact and it's really makes sense to just continue proceeding in your career as you have been and not let it become a giant distraction and a big stress that creates a lot of frankly anxiety for you the third thing that I think will help you cope with AI being very popular now and not fear it so much much is to remember you are the compiler now let me explain what I mean by that if you think of something somewhat more recent like last 10 15 years like typescript for example you know if if you know typescript you know that JavaScript is a is a web-based programming language to make you know interactive websites and obviously you can do node you can do server side you can do all kinds of stuff you can do mobile now with it but you know JavaScript is a basic technology that was you know designed in the late '90s and it's evolved tons since then and people found there were certain features of of JavaScript that they didn't like you know that that they didn't think were powerful enough they didn't think they they needed it needed type safety it needed a whole bunch of different stuff and so Microsoft came along and created typescript and basically it transpiles right it it it takes your JavaScript code and it converts it into typescript well when there's a problem with the typescript and this doesn't happen so much today but this used to happen a lot when typescript was newer if you don't know JavaScript you're kind of just left scratching your head because you're looking at the output you're looking at the compiled JavaScript that that the typescript generates that actually runs on the browser well AI is similar meaning if you use AI to generate you know generative assets or source code or you know applications anything right there's just a a flurry of Technologies coming out now that use AI in one way or or another if you are a programmer and you know the underlying programming language or technology or you know Cloud platform whatever it is that that AI technology is generating assets or code for when things are wrong or it doesn't work the way that it should you are the exact type of person who can look at the output and look at the assets and understand what went wrong versus somebody who's brand new to programming they've never written code they don't know the language and they're just using AI Technologies with some prompts and some configuration and some higher order maybe visual tools to Output code they're going to be completely lost when things go wrong now as AI evolves again I like I told you earlier none of us know what's going to fully happen I'm included in that but I'm just trying to give you tips just at least in the short to midterm to not flip out about it and not feel like you have to drop everything and you know learn all this new AI stuff is you've still got a huge advantage today and I think we will for a while at least as programmers that we understand code we don't just understand the output of tools that generate code we can write it ourselves the fourth thing you can do that'll really help you not be as stressed about AI not fear it so much not panic about it but actually embrace it I think is to use AI to diversify your skills this is something I've started to do with chat GPT specifically in the last year but whether it's soft skills you want to learn how could I communicate to my manager better how do I respond to a slack message that was really kind of Bogue and my knee-jerk reaction is to kind of at the person instead I'm thinking what would be a little bit better way to answer this ask chat GPT hey you know I just got this response from my lead developer uh I'm kind of pissed off but what would be a way to respond to this that would not be you know just kind of kissing their butt but would be more politically correct or just not upset them maybe as much see what it says is it going to be perfect no but you know I I look at I look at at least chat GPT it can do a ton of things right but I look at it really beneficial as sort of like a learning assistant you know it helps me learn it helps me be more effective at things that maybe I just haven't done much before also marketing if you ever want to start a company if you ever want to create a YouTube channel if you ever want to have a podcast if you write LinkedIn articles you know if you want anybody to start to look at you as an expert or somebody that they would pay for a software product or education or anything like that you need to learn digital marketing this is something that I've been learning for the last 6 years myself and I'll tell you since chat GPT came out I mean a lot of the books I've read a lot of the different concepts it has synthesized a lot of those in a way where I can ask it questions about you know sales Pages I'm creating for things or you know Pages I'm creating to tell people about my career coaching and it'll do a really great job now again it's not perfect and some of the the contented crates doesn't sound great and I got to massage it a little but it still saves me a ton of time also you can use AI to help you learn other AI Technologies you know one of the things that these chat-based AIS are really good at is rapidly teaching you creating you know courses for you education programs giving you answers to things you know rather than worrying about oh maybe I'm a senior Dev or a mid-level Dev and I'm worried that all these Junior developers are going to come along and take my job because they can use chat GPT or they can use co-pilot how about starting to use it yourself and and have using it to help you learn things faster so that you can get Beyond senior developer get into architect positions you know create your own products start your own companies so you know whether it's communication learning to communicate with people better marketing and sales learning other AI Technologies I think you can fear AI a little bit less if you stop looking at as something you have to master and really look at it like the new Google it's really a tool that can help you learn a lot of stuff faster now I know I'm only talking about chat-based AI tools like chat GPT I'm not talking about a lot of other AI Technologies but just specifically I think one of the things if you're worried about productivity and you're worried about people taking your jobs that can help you is hey start using these tools to get really way better at some of the things that honestly programmers aren't as as good at and I think that'll also build some confidence because I know a lot of people worry you know is programming still going to be around in 5 years and I sure is healthy think it is but if you're really worried about it wouldn't one of the best things to do be to start to learn other skills than just programming and also learn ones that are beneficial to a programming position it's really a win-win another thing you can do that'll really help you cope with the fear and the Panic around AI is consider starting a very small Product Company that's in a niche that's non-technical and use AI to help them now uh I'm going to be creating a lot more content on channel in the upcoming year in 2024 and Beyond to help you with starting small product companies on the side uh with you know going into business for yourself as a freelancer or consultant again on the side transitioning into it this is something I've kind of done over the last six years I see a lot of developers now who just want to break free of sort of the corporate grind but if this is something you're considering um if you want to you know maybe not be as freaked out about what's your company going to do about AI look looking at companies out there who aren't as technical you know laundromats uh manufacturers of different Plastics you know every kind of industry you can think of where maybe you can find ways to sell products or build products that use AI to help those non-technical companies where there's a real business case there you can really show hey by building this tool it's saving them a ton of money or it's reducing their staff or it's letting them do things they've never done before you know I think so so many people are caught up in how do I create an AI product or or maybe a startup that's based on you know AI technology like being an AI tech company which hey that's sexy that's attractive if you want to raise a bunch of money and show off to someone at a dinner party you know I have an AI tech company cool go for it but it's a hell of a lot easier you know if you want to be a solopreneur or startup company try to find a company or or an industry rather that's not very technical and find innovative ways to apply AI to it where you can really solve their problems build you know a minimum viable product to get to them with not a lot of effort not a lot of money I mean at the end of the day if that company is only worth let's say a million dollars a year it's probably a hell of a lot more than you're making so don't get caught up and thinking you know the only way you can benefit from AI yourself if you want to start a company is that you got to start an AI tech company the other thing you can use AI for that I think will chill you out a little bit and give you more options if you're worried as a programmer is start to think about maybe using it to offer courses or education to non-technical companies to help them use AI you you you're probably starting to see people do this but like a simple example and I wouldn't suggest this specifically because it's already I think a saturated Market is there's a lot of people in digital marketing you know helping people uh digital marketing is basically helping people hear about a product or a service it's when you see advertisements on Facebook or LinkedIn or YouTube or anywhere you know that's digital marketing there's a lot more to it than just ads but you know there there's people out there now who are actually selling products and services to teach small businesses for example like if you were a startup hey here's how to do digital marketing using AI so they're not like creating a whole new product in that they're you know programming a bunch of stuff but they're giving them prompts to use they're helping them learn how to use chat GPT again in this simple example I know there's there's way more AI Technologies than just chat-based I'm I'm well aware of that but you know that's one thing you can consider too is is if you're in some particular niche of programming or devops or technology you know could you possibly start to create some courses that teach companies let's see let's say that need to learn how to use terraform you know here's how to write some chat GPT prompts that will generate you know terraform configuration let's say for a specific problem that you have again I'm just making something up but my point is like if you get creative about it you can kind of take some of the programming things that you've learned figure out a way to use AI to sort of accelerate some of the you know the code or just the problems that need to be solved that need to come out of that and then package that up start selling that either as a consultant where you're helping people do it maybe they don't don't do it themselves they hire you to help or you come in and you just sell them a package or a product and they do it themselves so what are you doing to spot the AI hype what are you doing to kind of prevent the fear from taking over what are some of the opportunities that you see from Ai and are there some things this year that you want to change in your career or that you're thinking of doing as a result of how crazy everything's changing let me know about it in the comments until next time thanks

Channel: Healthy Software Developer

Views: 76,946

Keywords: programming ai, programmer ai, coding ai, coder ai, ai programmer, ai programming, ai software development, ai software developer, software developer ai, software development ai, software engineer ai, ai software engineer, artificial intelligence, programming artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence software engineering, ai software engineering

Id: T7TkxOMftz4

Length: 22min 52sec (1372 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 11 2023