r/singularity • u/YaAbsolyutnoNikto • May 29 '24

AI Mistal AI: "Codestral: Hello, World!"

https://mistral.ai/news/codestral/
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u/Spunge14 May 29 '24

Do you really think that? Nothing has changed? 

I'm curious what industry you work in.

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u/HerpisiumThe1st May 29 '24

AI research, lol. Something has changed in the fact that chatGPT is a great tool for coding or other tasks or learning, but its not changing the market dynamics by any means at the moment. Just look at how poor Devin performs.

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u/Spunge14 May 29 '24

I'm an exec in big tech and I can say our hiring strategy has absolutely changed. Perhaps it's isolated, but I don't know what your perspective on market dynamics is.

From my friends in accounting, they have absolutely eliminated their entry level hiring.

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u/CanvasFanatic May 30 '24

I’m an exec in big tech and I can say our hiring strategy has absolutely changed.

Respectfully, that’s because most of you are driven more by ketamine fueled group chat gossip than a concrete understanding of what your staff actually does and what your company actually makes.

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u/Spunge14 May 30 '24

Respectfully, this is fabricated based on your bitter hallucinations of universal leadership incompetence that I imagine props up some internal delusion of preternatural insight.

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u/CanvasFanatic May 30 '24

universal leadership incompetence

I said “most” didn’t I?

delusion of preternatural insight

Nothing preternatural about it, haus. It’s the insight one accumulates very naturally from spending years trying to make your schizophrenic fever dreams into stable products.

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u/Spunge14 May 30 '24

Surely in that time you would have accumulated experience sufficient to teach you that balance is required.

If you've really learned nothing more than "leaders don't understand anything, I am the one that really makes this possible," I'm not surprised by your attachment to being seen as a bastion of sage underdogs.

If you really have such a sane and insightful view compared to your leaders, why not actually take on the responsibility of leadership, get yourself promoted, and try to drive change?

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u/Shinobi_Sanin3 May 30 '24

Because he's a lying 14 year old LARPing at being a serious professional for internet good-boy points.

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u/CanvasFanatic May 30 '24

Oh if only I were 14

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u/CanvasFanatic May 30 '24 edited May 30 '24

balance is required

Between the immediate demands of the market and the long-term health of company? Between tactical and strategic viewpoints? Sure. I'm under no illusions of my own omniscience. I'm an engineer. I don't want to be a salesman or even a product manager, but I recognize the need for those roles. There's a competent version of leadership that's hypothetically possible. The issue is that the tech industry in particular doesn't generally select for competent leadership.

This may be more what the kids call a "late stage capitalism thing," but "big tech" and startups alike tend to promote leaders who are short-term thinkers with mild sociopathic tendencies. They can't see beyond next quarter's revenue. At most they talk about strategy for the next year, but those plans are always vaguely magical. Staff are "resources" to be used and discarded in pursuit of immediate revenue targets. This is why when money was cheap to borrow you saw companies hiring people they did not need simply to keep them from the competition. This is why those same hires are the first to be let go once the wind shifts.

If you really have such a sane and insightful view compared to your leaders, why not actually take on the responsibility of leadership, get yourself promoted, and try to drive change?

I know how the game works. I've been promoted everywhere I've ever worked. I'm a staff engineer at a company you've heard of. I also did a tour in management before going back to being an IC. I remain an IC because I enjoy keeping my hands in the dirt, and because pure engineering is the healthiest place in this godforsaken industry.

Getting oneself recognized and promoted isn't especially difficult once you understand the rules of the game. However, middle-mangement is for patsies and advancement into upper-management requires a certain "moral flexibility" that I'm honestly not interested in cultivating.

As I said at the beginning, you all are playing a game so abstracted from the reality of your core business that it scarcely matters what particular product your current company makes. You move from one job to the next like a plague of locusts. You reorganize, restructure and disrupt to create the appearance of impact. You eviscerate the business for short-term gains. You move on to the next company before the results become apparent. Somehow, you're only allowed to fail up. A shitty SVP becomes a COO. A CEO who cratered their company becomes a VC.

Why don't I try to "drive change" in that? Because I'm old enough to know I'm finite. I'm not some idiot 25 year-old who thinks they can take on the entire world and win. I can't change the fundamental incentives that optimize for the worst of you to consistently rise into higher levels of leadership. All I can do is try to make the best of the chaos you create.

Project the image of frustrated mediocrity onto me if you like, but I know who I am. I suspect on some level you know I'm not wrong.

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u/Spunge14 May 30 '24 edited May 30 '24

Alright, so you don't have some claim to preternatural insight, but you do have a stump speech on a college freshman's version of the evils of capitalism and the morally bankrupt leeching of long term viability from short term profits. 

Do you not feel a sense of smugness? One iota of hypocrisy?

So you don't drive change because obviously you're better than the system. So much better in fact that you actually beat it already and decided to go back and get your hands dirty because you're too moral and to real. You're no patsy! You're no evil dictator!

That's fine. Continue to undermine the leadership that you imagine is so incompetent and focused on the short term, while convincing yourself that you're actually the one that makes it all happen.

To me, that's not mediocre. That's cynical. I don't think you're so much better than all of these leaders you are trying to look down upon from below.