I am in the same spot as a non-software engineer.

If you are using multiple programming languages though you really can't say you are a non-programmer.

I just got up and running with Julia in like two weeks when I didn't even know what Julia was 3 weeks ago.

On the other hand, I have the digital audio workstation Reaper installed. It is one thing for LLMs to write crud apps and data science scripts but to write a digital audio workstation(something I have 25 years of experience as a user), as a non-software engineer I wouldn't even know how to begin. Even if I could compile the code to play an audio file with a volume knob, the gulf is so huge. I wouldn't be able to add more than a few features before it would become totally unmanageable since I don't know what I am doing.

Much of what makes LLMs so impressive is we have such low expectations of modern software. They have broken the market for demo CRUD apps. Beyond that though I wouldn't trust anything cursor and I make.

Maybe because my salary doesn't depend on any of this that I think this whole framing is science fiction.

A calculator needs direction on what to calculate because the machine doesn't have agency.

We are going to a higher level of abstraction and at that higher level you probably need a different skill set than before. Humans aren't going to get cut out of the loop but you always have to level up your skills.

I think there is just a generation of tech workers that got lazy and thought they were immune to change some how. I didn't even know anyone that had been on the internet when I graduated high school. Someone older and wiser though told me I would have to constantly reinvent myself, always learn new skills and will have several different careers. They were so spot on. Guess what? Nothing has changed.

If we ever find each other IRL, I suspect that we will be fast friends.

A tip of my hat to you, sir/ma'am.

I suspect many people are simply not that intellectually curious about the world.

It a super power for the intellectually curious while the highly specialized that thought they were done learning can only see the threat to their intellectual moat. They aren't wrong.

I feel like I level up on a weekly basis practically.

YESssss

I feel like this has become one of the most taboo things to even wonder about out loud, because it drives a different part of the Venn diagram into a freaking rage. How dare you force me to consider that perhaps I am only slightly above average in a population of billions?

It wouldn't be shocking to me that in 30 years, your daughter would be tasked with writing a whole book and not just an essay. Part of the learning process is learning to leverage technology. Something I think we do a really bad job at teaching kids.

Of course, leveraging technology to do the exact same thing you would do without the technology is a terrible lesson on many levels.

Seems obvious to me too as someone who sucks at dancing but loves fitness.

Like saying the heart worked harder with people on a treadmill at 4 miles per hour than 3 miles per hour.

I think there is also this bogus implication then that dancing would help you write a better novel or painting a picture than just walking on a treadmill.

Thanks. That is a really great idea.

You are just wrong.

Before the camera, portrait painting was how most painters would make their living and the camera upended that completely.

On the last line, look up hyperrealist painter on a search engine. That is the reverse , an artistic movement in painting inspired by the photograph.

We have already been through this with music.

It doesn't really work that way. Over time, it really does just devalue the art form in a sense because now anyone can make a recording.

Electronic music is really the best example. In 1995 it took thousands of dollars to have a fully working studio to even produce any track. By 2005, anyone could do this in their bedroom for basically nothing. In 1995 the cost acted as a filter so only those with talent would bother. Once anyone could do it, all electronic music recordings were devalued by the infinite supply.

I thought there would be 1000 Richard James once this happened. Maybe there even are but I have never heard them because there is so much shit to sift through I really don't even listen to electronic music anymore. I don't think there are though. 900 them probably are doing something else because there is no money left in the art form, 90 are making some other style of music with better financial prospects and the 10 that are, I will never hear of or be able to find.

"Rap isn't even music, they aren't even singing!"

You are just expressing the same, uncreative, ignorant opinion that is always expressed when we come upon a NEW ART FORM.

Temporal graph visualization is quite lacking. It probably depends what one time slice of your network looks like.

If you have 10 to 20 nodes without a ton of edges you could use a fixed circular layout for the nodes on a timeline that just the edges change over time.

More than this and you start getting into hairball territory even without the changes over time. A hairball changing over time is even more useless than a hairball on its own.

The standard force directed layout is really quite useless other than seeing the global structure of the graph. The uselessness is more obvious when you try to change it over time. I suspect the layout is so standard because the visualization looks so cool.

Most data visualization though has this same problem. There is almost this property that the cooler and more beautiful the visualization is, the more useless it is as far as containing any insight about the data itself.