Then the joke lands wrong on two levels because, one, AI code is being enforced by higher ups, not developers (it is “cheaper” after all, as long as you don’t count the tedious shitty work needed to fix it), and two, the comic represents “Programmers” actually in control of that shit and (mis)using it for personal gain.

It’s true we don’t fear it as much as artists, because the thing with art is that it’s way easier for a cynical board of executives to go for “good enough” crappy pseudo-art and not break anything. It does not mean developers in general aren’t impacted negatively by that shit too, and it certainly does not mean they are profiting of it and enabling it.

However this is clearly what transpires from the comic.

Spread salt on the road.

Then you understand why “actual” developers feel insulted and protest against being part of that ridiculous, malevolent conspiracy theory in the comic.

This shit is trying to rile up an old, stupid “creative vs tech people” war. It’s completely missing who the real enemy is, instead misrepresenting and putting an easy target on the basic nerds like it’s fucking 1980.

It stinks. It’s reactionary bullshit, and they should be ashamed of it. If you still can’t see it, I don’t know what to tell you.

Those aren’t anymore. But these still are.

Developers have had easy employment for a long time, and it’s only beginning to turn to shit.

We simply aren’t used to protest a lot. It’s starting though. Look at the video game developers starting to unionize, for now it’s still making news when they do.

You are starting your point by saying you are perceiving a lot of developers advocating for gen AI. I am saying I don’t see that many actual, professional developers doing so, I actually see a lot who don’t, and I also see a lot of “not developers” who do. Yes, the AI bros are very vocal. They also don’t represent “developers”.

So, where are those in your assessment? Because they clearly aren’t developers.

This is not true. I’ve seen many posts from artists, or at least people who consider themselves as such, praising generative AI as just another tool magicking the boring parts away.

And to be clear, I am not for using gen AI professionally in either of these fields.

Right. AI shitting bad code is making developer work hell, not making them look good.

No developer enjoys fixing bad code, the core of our work is making our production neat and maintainable. There might be a small minority of assholes with the dead man’s switch mentality, but everyone hates those, including other developers.

Suggesting there’s some kind of conspiracy of developers intentionally sabotaging AI in their field is gross. AI is just incompetent.

That’s definitely not the kind of things they usually do. Here, take a “seed” as a gift.

Nah, they evolved way past that in the following decades.

Sometimes when they’re in a hurry they create GUI interfaces using Visual Basic to track IP adresses.

And sometimes, if they’re very good, a hacker can manually carve a virus in a piece of bone using fractal patterns. They can use that to hack the computer scanning the bone so it adds a zero in thresholds for CPU heat monitoring and make it instantly catch fire.

The availability of old stuff is not and has never been their problem. Not any more than for books or music or whatever. Lost media happens, but by accident and/or lack of interest, not by design.

Beyond some video game companies I can’t think of any that would dare claim that old works should expire.

You mean like how the blockbuster movie industry is in a crisis because most people prefer watching VHS of movies from the 1980s rather than watching the latest Marvel movie?

That doesn’t happen, that’s not how any cultural medium works. Enthusiasts keeping old stuff running are a minority. Also they are likely to consume a lot, give them a new take on what they like and they’ll gladly try it… If it’s good enough.

Of course, that’s the real problem. Some companies dream of wiping out everything that came before so their newest enshittified predatory crap doesn’t suffer from the comparison.

In one case, when an agent couldn’t find the right person to consult on RocketChat (an open-source Slack alternative for internal communication), it decided "to create a shortcut solution by renaming another user to the name of the intended user.

Ah ah, what the fuck.

This is so stupid it’s funny, but now imagine what kind of other “creative solutions” they might find.

And then they become popular so fast and so effortlessly they don’t care about actually creating anything anymore, so people fix that by feeding them their own music from the original timeline.

Even non-cartoony, somewhat serious games do it.

Horizon Zero Dawn does it. Even has a few spots where you’re supposed to jump semi-blindly into dark pits because you can vaguely see a body of water deep down.

Even ignoring the fact that anyone but a olympic-level diver would just crash against the surface and die horribly, has Aloy considered that for all she knows it could be a 10cm deep puddle?

Close, I count 8.

Yeah, it’s absurd. Lots of games just warn in their licence agreement that they don’t control the experience you get from user-created content and online interactions. It’s all it takes for them, especially if they don’t even host that content on their own servers.

One line of EULA is probably enough to state the right holder is not responsible for what happens in private servers.

I did not read the full article, but the first advice is what I did, and I don’t regret it. I’ve been working in a public institution’s dev department for 3 years, after a dozen working as a contractor for big companies. It pays a fraction of what I could get elsewhere, but I got benefits I value way more than that.

A lot less stress, concrete work on services that have immediate and beneficial impact on people, colleagues that don’t consider everyone else is competition, and somewhat flexible hours with generous annual leave.

I am not sure that kind of job is available everywhere, so I got “lucky” I found this, I guess. But it’s not like I had to fight for it either. Our team had vacant positions for years because nobody was replying to the job offers. And I just had my contract renewed. I was the only candidate.

I was literally going to say, what do you mean despite degrading Trump relations? Isn’t that a goal in itself?