[–] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Hey thanks for replying! It's a great question, and one I don't have a good answer for.

My immediate gut instinct is that we SHOULD still be teaching kids coding, and everything else that was on their curriculum previously. Just as calculators helped us work faster, we still want to understand what they're doing. Even if AI can augment or replace some of our knowledge in future, it's still important to think for yourself and be able to vet what you're generating with AI. But this is an answer built around what's happening right now, not tomorrow.

When I think about an answer in relation to my experience over the last year, it feels a lot more hopeless, at least to me. I don't think we're going to know what adults should be focusing on in the short term, let alone what kids are learning for their future careers.

The situation is changing so rapidly in my workplace (at least for software engineers) that AI workflows we were using 3 months ago feel ancient. By not being on the latest frontier model, we're losing productivity. We're all rolling our own custom software to speed up our personal workflows. It's faster and cheaper to do this in many cases than to buy an off-the-shelf product and learn/master it.

So already, I feel like the days of companies selling software subscriptions feels very numbered. Adobe and Atlassian are going to have their business model completely destroyed IMHO. But that's not even the scary part.

Have a look at the number of Linux CVEs found this year compared to previous years - it's humbling. Governments are paying very close attention, and export controls on AI models are in full swing. They're very capable cyberweapons.

So the future I'm seeing is an incredibly uncertain one for everyone due to the exponential nature of it all, both from a geopolitics standpoint as well as a career standpoint for many industries. Last year I thought we were somewhere through the hype cycle and it was starting to slow down, but now I've had more hands on experience with the frontier models, these days I'm thinking we're still at the beginning of an exponential curve, an explosion of change that's going to happen so fast many of us will struggle to cope, and our slow legal and economic systems will struggle to keep up.

I think a lot of people are just assuming it'll all blow over once the bubble pops, but like all the other bubbles, it's formed because there is a very real technological leap happening, and it's not going away.

So right now I've never been more sure of one thing: that it's harder than ever to see what's coming. So to try and answer your question just feels impossible, it's all still moving too fast.

Perhaps on reflection one thing we should be teaching our kids is the importance of continued learning and bettering ones self. I fear the world is in for a rough decade from all this (not to mention climate change and late-stage capitalism), and anything we can do to prepare our kids to roll with the punches in that future would be wise.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (10 children)

    Another software engineer of 25 years here. I'm really surprised to see how badly you've been downvoted here for simply telling the truth. I suspect anyone who downvoted you either hasn't used a paid frontier AI model to write code (so they think the free browser-based models are as good as it gets), assumes you're pro-AI, or simply jumps on the AI-bad-downvote train.

    For anyone that downvoted, tell us, why? Let's have a conversation about it. Us software engineers are on the bleeding edge of this seismic shift. We're seeing firsthand what it's capable of, and how fast it's improving. It doesn't mean we're in favour of the AI companies, or ram shortages, or data centers being rolled out in your backyard, or being turned into engineering team leads overnight. It's been thrust into our lives just like yours, but if we don't use it we're throwing away a massive productivity boost and one of the most transformative technologies of the last few decades.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned it, but I recommend going with an Intel processor (8th gen or newer). This gets you Intel QuickSync (hardware video encoding/decoding) and an integrated GPU, making 4K video transcoding/playback a breeze. This opens up possibilities like Jellyfin, Frigate, and improves performance significantly for Immich.

    I've got an i5-8500T (no external GPU) that's managing 6x always-on security cameras in Frigate and Jellyfin streaming for 6 family members (local and remote with transcoding), plus a dozen other docker containers for Home Assistant/websites/*arr stack plus 4 always-on Linux VMs for various other projects, and the CPU sits anywhere from 30-60%. It's amazing how capable old CPUs are as long as they have hardware video codecs.

    Your biggest concern is going to be RAM. The more things you want to run on the server at once, the more RAM you'll need. I need 64GB for my above stack for example.

    I think a used laptop or NUC-style mini PC is a great choice for a starter setup! Especially something with onboard soldered RAM, because this will be somewhat immune to the current RAM pricing crisis. If you can force the laptop battery to only charge to 50% in BIOS, you get a free UPS with little risk of battery death. You can always migrate to something more permanent/expensive if you enjoy the hobby.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 weeks ago

    It's also not fair to put all the blame on AI. The bar to entry for making a game has been getting lower and lower over the past two decades. First we got free middleware like SDL, Cocos2d etc. Then we got full game engines available like Unity and Unreal with flexible licencing options. Then we got content stores for those game engines that let you bolt something together in no time. Then we got Fortnite, Roblox and the birth of the YouTube-style microgame within a game. AI was just the next step in this process. The slop is just a symptom of a free and open marketplace, whether it's human or AI-driven. We saw the same thing happen with music once it started going digital. Less barrier to entry = more content, whether it's good or terrible.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 weeks ago

    Around 150W for UPS, Mikrotik router, Pi 4, Proxmox/TrueNAS server with 8x SAS drives. Without the SAS drives I'd be closer to 50W, but how else am I going to heat up my cupboard? I got the SAS drives at a bargain price thankfully... I estimate about AUD300/year in electricity.

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