State of the Market

[avonleigh]

I think we still have 10 to 25 years before AI is going reach the level to replace intelligent engineers. Probably wont be these LLMs that make stuff up when they don't know the answer. It is going to need some much better algos than LLMs. At the moment they just help with grunt boilerplate work..
But it is going to happen at some point in the next few decades. Luckily i will be retired by then, but if was under 30 or 40 i would be more scared.

For any industries where every things don't have to be perfect down to the last byte these LLMs seem to be good enough already. Generating Images and Video, answering tech support emails...

This my thinking too. I am 54 and don't have much of a career left so don't think AI will do much harm for me. But I fear for my children.

[gables]

Not hopeful for people in the long term. I watched a news report (Scotland) talking about remote controlled ships. The ones detailed would have had a crew of 50-60 but with this tech it dropped to 16; they didn't say if these jobs would be absorbed into the remote control rooms. Also the Captain could be in charge of multiple ships at the same time. I'm all for new tech but I do worry what people will do for jobs in the future.

[oliverson]

This my thinking too. I am 54 and don't have much of a career left so don't think AI will do much harm for me. But I fear for my children.

I'll be 57 this summer, so like you, I don't see it impacting my career that much in the time I've got left doing it. I fear for the country, the people, etc. but having no children and no parents, it's just myself, the missus and the dogs to look after.

In my lifetime I've seen several recessions. What usually happens is a rough period of time and then things come good again. I'm not sure that's going to happen this time around. It seems like an ongoing, worsening and irreversible situation here in the UK. That's why I'm so glad we have 'a place in the sun'. I think we will probably sell up here in the UK at the height of the next housing bubble and move abroad. But when will that bubble be?

[Echo1234]

I've been looking since December and have had 3 interviews. I've been turned down for them all because I have holidays booked over Easter. It's really frustrating, do I not tell them and just turn up and say I've got holidays booked?

[Snooky]

It's really frustrating, do I not tell them and just turn up and say I've got holidays booked?

My suggestion - don't mention it at interview unless you're specifically asked. Wait until you have an offer and the contract comes through and you're nearly in the door, then contact your prospective client manager directly and mention the holidays and ask if it'll be a problem. Unless it's absolutely critical that you're around at that specific time, they're not going to cancel it all and go back to square one, they'll just accommodate you.

I've done this several times with no problems.

[eek]

On holidays - don’t provide them any reason to reject you, so keep quiet about holidays until it’s too late. Especially now because once next week has been and gone we will be in the wind down to Easter holidays anyway

[northernladuk]

I've been looking since December and have had 3 interviews. I've been turned down for them all because I have holidays booked over Easter. It's really frustrating, do I not tell them and just turn up and say I've got holidays booked?

How many holidays? I've never had a problem with holidays coming up early in a gig. I say early it's never been less than 6 weeks in. I find it hard to believe all three turned you down just because you've a week off... or is it two weeks in which case you can kinda see their problem.

[mogga71]

I think we still have 10 to 25 years before AI is going reach the level to replace intelligent engineers. Probably wont be these LLMs that make stuff up when they don't know the answer. It is going to need some much better algos than LLMs. At the moment they just help with grunt boilerplate work..
But it is going to happen at some point in the next few decades. Luckily i will be retired by then, but if was under 30 or 40 i would be more scared.

For any industries where every things don't have to be perfect down to the last byte these LLMs seem to be good enough already. Generating Images and Video, answering tech support emails...

The strides made in AI over the last 5 years alone have been incredible and things will only accelerate unfortunately. I am fortunate in that I am coming to the end of my working career but do worry about my 17 year old sons future in this country as quite frankly I don't think there is much of one.

We are in a bad place in so many ways. I find myself agreeing more and more with Jeff Booth in that we need to prepare ourselves for a completely different lifestyle going forward whereby its more about leisure than working for the majority of people.

One thing I would say is that I believe that there are incredible investment opportunities due to the focus on AI. I think you could quite easily see a £100k investment turn into a £1M over the next 10 years if you invest in some of the American tech stocks....even just the magnificent 7 with maybe the odd edge case like Palantir, UI Path, CrowdStrike thrown in.

[Fraidycat]

we need to prepare ourselves for a completely different lifestyle going forward whereby its more about leisure than working for the majority of people.

In other words the lifestyle of out of work people on some sort of state handout. Using terms like 'leisure' is just sugar coating what sounds like a very grim future.

In theory AI should reduce the cost of living for everyone so everyone will enjoy a higher standard of living. Utopia.

But more likely the gap between the very rich and the poorest will increase.. as those in the bottom 90% or 99% or 99.99%, will have no ability to accumulate assets without any income. 'You will be happy but own nothing', no you definitely wont be..

Still I don't think that is happening for another 15 to 30 years. In the meantime, like you suggest, we have to try and accumulate wealth and assets while we still have income.

[MyUserName]

I haven't felt a big difference in my working week due to AI. I had a 40 hour a week contract when ChatGPT came out. The only difference was that the bosses expected more from us in those 40 hours because we had ChatGPT to help us.