Just as a side note, at my university about half the CS people are in the AI track. I would guess that number will keep increasing. There is also a separate major that kind of focuses on AI/psychology that is pretty popular but I am not sure how many people are in it. A good number of the students have some kind of "AI startup". Also, although it violates the honor code, I would be willing to bet many students use AI in some way for doing programming assignments.
This isn't to say you are wrong but just to put some perspective on how things are changing. Maybe most new programmers will be hired into AI roles or data science.
The ask from every new grad to be assigned to ai development is unreasonable right now and they are probably hurting their careers by all going the same direction honestly. It’s a small fraction of our development efforts and we usually hire very senior for that sort of role. We still need people that can program for the day to day business needs and it’s a perfect starting role for a new grad yet almost all of them are asking for assignment to ai development.
I appreciate anyone that can utilise ai well but there’s just not enough core ai model development jobs for every new grad.
Agree and disagree. You do it need a “degree in AI”. However, you need to be using AI in your degree. Really using it.
What are those “day to day business needs” that you think people are going to do without AI?
In my view, this is like 1981. If you are saying, we will still need non-computer people for day-to-day business needs, you are wrong. Even the guy in the warehouse and the receptionist at the front are using computers. So is the CEO. That does not mean that everybody can build one, but just think of the number of jobs in a modern company that require decent Excel skills. It is not just the one in finance. We probably don’t know what the “Excel” of AI is just yet but we are all going to need to be great at it, regardless of who is building the next generation of tools.
Wouldn't the AI track be more about the knowing the internals, being able to build models, ... So in your 1981 example that would be saying about half of the people are enrolling in computer hardware courses, whereas only a fraction of those are needed?
I would assume any other CS course teaches/is going to be teaching how to use AI to be an effective software developer.
I agree with your point in general, but saying one needs to be great at using AI tools gives way too much credit to companies’ ability to identify low performers. Especially in large organizations, optics matter far more than productive output. Being able to use AI tools is quite different from saying you are using AI tools!
An actual hardcore technical AI "psychology" program would actually be really cool. Could be a good onboarding for prompt engineering (if it still exists in 5 years).
Yeah, the younguns smell opportunity and run towards it. They'll be fine. It's younguns) the less experienced folks in the current corporate world that will have the most to lose.
The really experienced of us will have made this mistake enough times to know to avoid it.
I didn’t get a smart phone until the 2010s. Stupid I know but it was seen as a badge of honour in some circles ‘bah I don’t even use a smart phone’ we’d say as the young crowd went about their lives never getting lost without a map and generally having an easier time of it since they didn’t have that mental block.
Ai is going to be similar no doubt. I’m already seeing ‘bah I don’t use ai coding assistants’ type of posts, wearing it as a badge of honour. ‘Ok you’re making things harder for yourself’ should be the reply but we’ll no doubt have people wearing it as a badge of honour for some time yet.
I don't think I agree. I think the counterpoint of "woke" is "fascist" or "racist". People on the right call things woke and people on the left call things fascist. But I think the difference in the meaning of these words reveals a lot about who is saying them. For example, woke people are merely self-righteously moralistic but fascists are such a severe threat that we have to end things like free speech, etc. in order to prevent a constant threat to society. That might explain some of this divide.
I think part of this is correct regarding the professors who started off as "radicals" or hippies in the 1960s but there is no mention of why the cultural revolution of the 1960s happened in here. Couldn't that be examined more closely?
In my opinion, we have been undergoing a cultural clash for power at the top of society for decades between various groups. At one point in time this country was firmly in the hands of WASPs. Waves of immigrants arrived in cities who clashed with them. There were fights about who could get into the most powerful universities which was directly related to the struggle for power between the groups. Wokeness in the US, is in my opinion, a consequence of identity politics which we have had for some time. I think identity politics is probably more natural than not having it because we see it all over the planet. I think a lot of people have created a narrative that they are fighting against identity politics but in fact have just recreated it in different terms.
I will make the case H1-B immigrants actually have an advantage to citizens when they arrive. Reducing everything down to just earnings potential and mindset doesn't cover the possibility that there are not equal opportunities available to everyone. I will give an example.
So for example, immigrants can come to the US and have the privilege of being able to pick where they want to live because they have no attachments. This gives them a huge advantage because they pick higher income locations but especially seem to prefer being near the limited number of good high schools. Most Americans do not go to a top rated high school and do not live near one. It's not even possible for all Americans to go to a top rated high school just by definition. People going to top rated high schools have a much higher chance of going on to top rated universities which are gateways to power. Universities and high schools are just not all the same product. A Harvard degree is not the same as a state university degree. Economics alone does not capture things like that. There are real advantages things like prestige ratings give to people. So H1-B immigrants fall into a professional class which goes on to disproportionately have power with more income and more roles available in government. I think there are implications here you can surmise. Lousy education in the US is a factor here and people bristle just as much at the thought of leveling playing fields in education, even pro education people. Everyone loves rankings and prestige. It hasn't escaped my notice that elite universities have massive numbers of international, first, second, and third gen immigrants leading to a new class.
Second, another reason I don't believe immigration is meritocratic is because of what you said earlier that often immigrants are the best from their own respective country and I think that is true. They are literally smarter, we are taking the top 1% from other countries but attributing a lot of their success to just hard work. Not everyone is mentally capable of being say a medical doctor.
Third, there isn't a general global open immigration plan. Most countries are closed to immigration and I think the thought of Americans en masse migrating to a foreign place like India or China is ridiculous and everyone knows they wouldn't allow it. But I doubt America is the only place on the earth Americans could ever work. Sure, there are expats yes but nothing like on the scale of people moving to the US. So in general it doesn't really seem like this system was designed to be a meritocracy, it was designed by people at the top for their goals (cut wages, import people they like, etc) and immigrants go because they profit, but I am not sure how that's a meritocracy. It just sounds like a conspiracy.
Seems like we agree on most things. Yeah skilled immigrants tend to do better than citizens. That's why you see so many of them in top tech firms. Meritocracy isn't about levelling the playing field. It's the opposite. The best win no matter how they became the best (barring crimes). If an immigrant has less attachments to jobless / lower income areas. If an immigrant has a better education and finances. Meritocracy welcomes that, and so do I. Meritocracy made the US the capitol of the tech landscape, and it will continue to do so
They are required to by law but I saw something odd once. My company published the job they wanted an immigrant to fill in some weird printed newspaper that I doubt had much readership if any so obviously they got no offers. Then they take that and say they couldn't find a citizen for the role so they had to get an immigrant. I still question if maybe I missed something because if what I saw is true, it really breaks the spirit of the law. Obviously HR and managers handled it all and they don't tell me details like that but I found out about it later when I witnessed a form sent to the Dept. of Labor for someone I knew.
What you are talking about is PERM. That's a requirement that the department of labor has established. When you want to hire an immigrant permanently, DOL requires that you take out an ad in a Sunday newspaper. It benefits the lawyers and the government greatly as this is a good source of revenue for both of them. As far as the actual job goes, that job was never open. The person is already working for the company on a visa. DOL just makes them do this dog and pony show before they can hire them permanently. These regulations are a few decades old and were never updated.
There are other precautions: the job application has to be mailed to a physical address and can easily get "lost", the requirements for the position are numerous and peculiar (the #1 in the old times used to be fluency in a foreign language, but DOL/USCIS eventually got tired of that one, still, since the requirements are for a particular person, it can be any random mix of skills, all of which are hard requirements), and the interview process itself is not designed to pass anyone as the person, on whose behalf the PERM is being filed, won't be interviewing. One would be spending time much more productively applying to real vacancies. The only winning play here is to go through the process and sue the company to get some pain and suffering judgment, which I have not heard being successfully done (but I don't really follow this closely so I could be just ignorant).
No expert on this, but in my estimation the nature of the law and process makes it hard to sue unless you're a one-to-one match with the job posting or invented part of the tech stack being used. Companies across various industries pass up on qualified people every day.
That’s pretty common and not actually limited to H1-Bs
I know universities will do this with certain open positions where they already have a candidate in mind but are required to advertise an opening, can’t remember the specifics why though. Same with RFPs.
This article didn't mention it but luxury watch demand went up a lot, especially for Rolex, in 2020-2021. There was abnormal demand. Prices rose a lot on the grey/second hand market. Rolex designates the MSRP to dealers and grey market prices were actually substantially higher than the MSRP dealers are required to sell at. A lot of these watches could be dealers selling them under the table. That's presumably how new watches end up on the grey market. You can search around for it online where some articles mention it and a lot of blog posts and watch forums discuss prices back then.
What's interesting is why that happened. It was probably a result of having more free cash available.
The crazy aftermarket prices caused a lot of people to consider a Rolex watch as an investment rather than the status symbol it was supposed to be.
People who had no intention to wear a Rolex IRL flocked to dealerships for the sole purpose of reselling at a profit. Which further inflated the apparent demand, which again inflated aftermarket prices.
It was a bubble, pure and simple. There was a lot of liquidity sloshing around in Covid times that people didn't know what to do with. At least a watch lasts longer than a tulip, so this bubble won't burst as dramatically.
IMHO, I think bitcoin ramping up in value starting holiday season 2020, Available cash and COVID did a lot to bubble the market as well.
I don’t think these were dealers selling them under the table either to pump prices. Last I’d heard, Rolex had a retail waiting list since before COVID started, may have changed recently.
Edit: Rolex also supposedly has a marketing budget percentage higher than most brands as well, so there may well be truth to them pumping prices in that manner.
Everything related to luxury and travel went up. It was usually explained as rebound from covid and free money. It might be a viral social media trend too
I think in the US we are increasingly suffering from credentialism. I think acquiring credentials and appearing to be the best possible person is more game-able than it was previously thought to be. I think Goodhart's Law is becoming apparent. I think credentials could be meaningful but that a lot of people exist just to occupy prestigious space and time but who do not add value. It seems like we're unwilling to admit this could happen.
I think the prestige matters. I agree with you but in the US we deliberately create bottle necks and then award people who make it through with the most powerful jobs. The powerful want to perpetuate this.
I don't think this is a healthy situation, it is creating a zero sum game and a tiny class of people whose children have an edge getting accepted. There is such a gap between the average high school student and the people who can get into high ranked schools that it's very bad for the nation's health overall.
We don't know the specifics of the Caltech students unless they publish all the data. I am not aware of any school that does that or breaks down data by gender even. (I could be wrong).
But here[1] there is a gender gap in SAT scores on average across all test takers, especially for mathematics. If that holds for Caltech applicants, which is reasonable to assume, then male students were more qualified. The article mentions that men are not better at math than women are and talks about a long quest for gender parity but doesn't seem concerned at all when men are accepted less than women so I am curious how that is consistent.
They did publish all (or a sufficient subset of) the data, most schools do publish that and break it down by gender, and you’re wrong.
I recognize the hurry to get a comment in, but an appeal to ignorance instead of googling it and using what you find to shape your opinion really sells yourself short, and diminishes the discussion to follow.
By data I meant, applicant data not enrollment data. I haven't seen schools publish admissions data broken down by gender. I can find the number of male and female applicants for a year but AFAIK they do not publish things like GPA and SAT or other performance measure of applicants broken down by gender. That's the only way to compare these two. I have googled for it and I don't see it. (https://www.google.com/search?q=caltech+SAT+by+gender)
AFAIK schools don't generally publish detailed statistics of applicants like that. They do publish enrolled student data. So is it possible that women outperformed men at Caltech? Yes. Is that more likely that what I implied? No, I think using the average SAT scores by gender, it's more likely men outperformed women at Caltech. But there is a degree of uncertainty.
Also I think you are making assumptions about what my motives were and why I posted. Guidelines:
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I submit you're looking for the wrong thing. We can assume every person at the top of both piles has a perfect GPA and a near-perfect SAT score, so this is not likely to help us figure anything out.
The real figure of merit in this discussion is simply the thickness of both piles.
With regard to the rest, I interpreted what you wrote differently than how you meant it, I appreciate the explanation, and I apologize for the confusion.
> If that holds for Caltech applicants, which is reasonable to assume
Caltech is an outlier if there ever was one, so why would it be reasonable to assume Caltech’s applicant statistics reflect broad population SAT statistics?
This isn't to say you are wrong but just to put some perspective on how things are changing. Maybe most new programmers will be hired into AI roles or data science.
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