White Collar Job Blues, the End of Accents, Microsoft cuts 6%, a practical guide to building agents and a cool technique for sourcing using embedded language translation on LinkedIn...
We have autonomous trucks here in the UK too! Here at the Port of Felixstowe we have them moving containers around. We are still recruiting (many...many) port operatives, but the AO trucks help boost productivity alongside the humans. https://www.portoffelixstowe.co.uk/about/innovation/
love it Charlotte. Be interesting to see what the impact to workforce composition is going to be in logistics - are you doing any work on this Charlotte?
We are, but I’m not sure it’s something I could share I’m afraid. I think the part I can be honest about is that it’s hard work for humans, we are a 24 hour port and people would shifts around the clock. We are finding increasingly people aren’t able to fit the shifts so we have the autonomous vehicles plug the gaps.
yep fair. I think we know automation is going to change jobs and will reduce jobs - this has always been the way in logistics. Lots of interesting things to explore, such as how to speak to the workers, how to transition, how to up skill etc. Love to find a space which you could share Charlotte - let me know what that is and we can shape an online conversation around it
It’s ‘funny’ how at item 4 (Nobody codes anymore) the subject of hiring/need less junior engineers comes up again.
I’ve seen this message more and more from (non technical) CEO’s… and the ‘funny’ part is;
- if you don’t hire juniors anymore, who will take the place of the senior when they leave/retire. You need the natural flow from junior-intermediate-senior.
These companies will, in a year or maybe more, struggle with replacing their workforce IF the ‘junior’ role disappears.
- if you only have seniors in the company, then what is a senior? There is no knowledge transfer, no opportunity to learn how to lead… this will affect the career of the senior as well.
- these companies are creating a shortage in a few years as AI can help code, but is not on an ‘engineering level’.
There is a MASSIVE difference between coding and engineering. An engineer does more than just write code, how will AI fix this, and how will companies keep that knowledge if there is no succession.
It’s short term thinking again..
Item 12: AI is only able to assess coding, not engineering. The difference is quite impactful. An engineer need to think about product, customers, scaling, testing (a/b, not code), impact on infra, etc.
AI is not able to assess engineers yet, it can only assess certain tasks.
AI might replace developers/coders.. but actually increases the need for Engineers
I’m aligned with rhe sceptics. Not because I doubt AI. Because I doubt people…. They are either overestimating AI or sometimes underestimating AI.
It’s too often that we yell ‘AI’ at automation, or think that something is AI. (Especially in TA tooling).
And sometimes people underestimate how fast AI is evolving.
I’m not talking about current LLM’s, but actual intelligent systems that do not need to be prompted, but learn how to ‘prompt’ themselves.
As long as we still need to ‘prompt’ AI to do what we want, and then tell it what to do next…it’s not intelligent yet.. but it won’t take long before that changes.
We have autonomous trucks here in the UK too! Here at the Port of Felixstowe we have them moving containers around. We are still recruiting (many...many) port operatives, but the AO trucks help boost productivity alongside the humans. https://www.portoffelixstowe.co.uk/about/innovation/
love it Charlotte. Be interesting to see what the impact to workforce composition is going to be in logistics - are you doing any work on this Charlotte?
We are, but I’m not sure it’s something I could share I’m afraid. I think the part I can be honest about is that it’s hard work for humans, we are a 24 hour port and people would shifts around the clock. We are finding increasingly people aren’t able to fit the shifts so we have the autonomous vehicles plug the gaps.
yep fair. I think we know automation is going to change jobs and will reduce jobs - this has always been the way in logistics. Lots of interesting things to explore, such as how to speak to the workers, how to transition, how to up skill etc. Love to find a space which you could share Charlotte - let me know what that is and we can shape an online conversation around it
I’m really sorry our company is super conservative and would hate me doing that!! Let me see if I can find someone else who would be able to help.
It’s ‘funny’ how at item 4 (Nobody codes anymore) the subject of hiring/need less junior engineers comes up again.
I’ve seen this message more and more from (non technical) CEO’s… and the ‘funny’ part is;
- if you don’t hire juniors anymore, who will take the place of the senior when they leave/retire. You need the natural flow from junior-intermediate-senior.
These companies will, in a year or maybe more, struggle with replacing their workforce IF the ‘junior’ role disappears.
- if you only have seniors in the company, then what is a senior? There is no knowledge transfer, no opportunity to learn how to lead… this will affect the career of the senior as well.
- these companies are creating a shortage in a few years as AI can help code, but is not on an ‘engineering level’.
There is a MASSIVE difference between coding and engineering. An engineer does more than just write code, how will AI fix this, and how will companies keep that knowledge if there is no succession.
It’s short term thinking again..
Item 12: AI is only able to assess coding, not engineering. The difference is quite impactful. An engineer need to think about product, customers, scaling, testing (a/b, not code), impact on infra, etc.
AI is not able to assess engineers yet, it can only assess certain tasks.
AI might replace developers/coders.. but actually increases the need for Engineers
I’m aligned with rhe sceptics. Not because I doubt AI. Because I doubt people…. They are either overestimating AI or sometimes underestimating AI.
It’s too often that we yell ‘AI’ at automation, or think that something is AI. (Especially in TA tooling).
And sometimes people underestimate how fast AI is evolving.
I’m not talking about current LLM’s, but actual intelligent systems that do not need to be prompted, but learn how to ‘prompt’ themselves.
As long as we still need to ‘prompt’ AI to do what we want, and then tell it what to do next…it’s not intelligent yet.. but it won’t take long before that changes.