I’m kind of sick of being a dev. I hate AI with a passion.
I hate the hallucinations, I hate slop, I hate megacrops, I hate the environmental impacts, I hate the massive costs. I could go on but you get the picture.
At work I often times have to review vibe code slop from people who clock in 9 to 5 and don’t give a fuck (I respect that, I just wish your fucking code wasn’t slop)
I’m sick of it, I’m sick of hearing about AI tooling or new models or bro agentic actions bro based on your documentation bro.
I want to switch careers, so which career is not ruined by AI?
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I was going to say my industry, sewer and water but now they’re forcing cameras with AI in them into our with vehicle to “save on insurance.” More like spy on us and figure out why we’re messing around with one fire hydrant so long.
I hate it here.
I’m there too. But not because AI. I just reviewed a PR by a newb. Code was fine. I could reason about what they did. It worked correctly. Then I read the other devs comments and what they requested done and now code that worked correctly and was easy to reason about is buried in abstraction that isn’t really needed but it “makes the code much better”. No it doesn’t.
That’s what I’m sick of. If I’m reading code and the logic that actually does something is buried that irritates me.
Some abstraction is great. Otherwise we would program with physical switches. But abstraction just because you think it makes the code look better is shit.
I’m a lathe operator. No AI there yet. And my lathe runs Linux too…
Inference of 3D models exists. Combined with a rule deck of what the machine is capable of (i.e. so tools aren’t broken) I think you could be very close to “prompt to object” prototyping flows — if they don’t already exist.
Still might need a pair of hands to clean up.
Now, how many botched tries are people willing to to pay the material cost of, who knows?
I love being a dev. I love being able to build things faster. I love solving an issue. I love working on a great product I believe in. I love working for a company that puts the well-being of its employees above its profits.
Nothing you’ve written is about the impact of “AI” (whatever this means) and it has everything to do with how you decide to work.
For all intents, it seems CAD is good for a while, at least til someone shows me a tool that goes straight from drawing to CAD and CAM paths. At least I’m also hoping myself. Besides, someone has to make those drawings, and for as long as my supervisors boss doesn’t know how even tools wear, I think we’re in the clear for.
Waiter?
Working in the trades is probably somewhat safe for a while.
Honestly I’d just go for something that you’re interested in. If AI displaces a ton of white collar workers, the system will probably collapse and we’ll all go mad max. In the meantime have fun!
Theyre rolling out cameras in our with vehicle with AI in it to tell when our eyes aren’t on the road and shit like that. From what I can tell, it’s just been alerting constantly for no reason at the people testing it out.
I work in fiber installation. I already have to deal with an ai copilot micromanaging me all day. Unless you are self employed, I doubt there’s going to be any choice.
trades and nursing.
Surf lifesaver
Locksmithing/access control is an industry that is sorely lacking new people going into it and the only interaction I have with AI is from one coworker in marketing for the company who uses chatgpt to write her emails. I definitely don’t make as much as my friends who are programmers though.
AI will never be able to throw bricks at cops. Something to consider
Do you get dental?
The settlement money from the city after I get my eyes blown out by “less lethal” rounds tends to cover it.
No :( only vision to ensure good aim
forest ranger hehe
I did this 9 years ago. I make 2/3rds of what I did in software, but I don’t regret it. pivoted to environmental work. My job satisfaction is like, a thousand percent better.
Can you say any more about the type of environmental work?
I started over doing entry level spray tech work treating exotic plants through americorps and worked my way up. I do a lot of field data collection and gis work now. So, I still utilize my old software skills. I work for my local government doing environmental land management.
GIS is definitely a software adjacent job that is utilized a lot in land management. But that isn’t the initial route I took. I really did just kind of started over.
Thank you for sharing
I’m in building maintenance. It’s not affected at all by AI. Most of the trades are safe. Basically anything which would require both advanced LLM and advanced robotics to replace.
Join us, become a tradie. Get a company vehicle. Work with your hands. Become enough of an expert in your trade that you can tell customers to go fuck themselves if they’re dicks. Have every company in the area be desperate to hire you because every trade is short handed. Work with people who barely understand the concept of a computer. Spend half of every paycheck on milwalkee packout tool boxes. Never have to work with AI again.
My preference is HVAC-R but plumber or electrician are also good choices. Building automation may seem attractive but then you’re getting close to the AI danger zone again.
And say goodbye to your knees!
A couple of thoughts on this as a union electrician: for starters AI is absolutely having an (arguably negative) impact on manpower fulfillment. In my area the massive expansion of data centers is causing a manpower shortage for all projects not funded by massive tech companies. This is complicated because it’s inflating income for tradesmen due to demand, but it’s also pressuring workers into ridiculous schedules (think 4x10s, 2x8s, and most Sundays) and is forcing contractors that aren’t running data center work to completely rework their payment structure and bid practices. Many of these sites are also a 1-2 hour commute for a large number of tradies. A lot of these guys have been gaslit for decades into thinking working more OT somehow makes them a better person.
Beyond that, while I haven’t personally seen it yet AI will absolutely begin worming its way into design; a process already riddled with issues and errors largely due to time constraints. Clients are going to want work done faster and cheaper, which will pressure design teams into using AI tools in the name of expediency, which will lead to more errors in the construction process, leading to inflated costs and likely problematic installations.
That’s not even getting into the future of AI robotics which absolutely will be impacting our tradesmen directly in the near future.
It’s coming for us too.
I’m not an electrician, but I have a relative that is. You nailed it. We’ve got a couple DCs going up near by, and he was asked to commit to a 2 year commitment for just one of them, working exactly the hours you said. He agreed because I think they are paying double time for all OT, and that’s good money. They asked if he wanted to sign on for the other DC but he declined for the obvious time reasons. It’s definitely had an effect on available workers for other projects since seemingly all hand are on deck.
I’m not familiar with the architecting process, but I can absolutely see how AI will be, if not already, involved with generating plans. It will shit something out faster than anyone could create it, but it will lose that value in review and the inevitable mistakes that make it through. AI is a cancer
Ironically, the three trades you listed are in high demand right now specifically because of the rapid rollout of the data centers needed to power AI.
i went into a dying trade in my 20s ugh and stuck with it now i’m too old to start a new one outside of maybe CDL. so yeah make sure you are physically up to it first (i am in very good shape for my age and look 10 years younger but i would be obliterated by the multiple year “break in” apprentice period again and likely would just get in a fist fight with someone trying to “break me” and destroy them and go to prison or vice versa)
Maybe I just skipped it because I was a factory tech for a while but there was no “breaking” in my experience. The worst we have is a tendancy to throw aprentices into being full techs a bit too quick sometimes.
