re: Will "Learn to Weld" become the new "Learn to Code" with AI coming for the coding jobs?

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No - most of us have just been in this industry long enough to know the latest tech fad when we see it. Usually what happens is there is some change from the new tech, but not anywhere even close to the initial promises and predictions.

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We might be in a bubble, but what shakes out in the end will probably be as impactful and pervasive as the internet.

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Why shouldn't I? It's got all the usual hallmarks of one. Superficial hype driven appeal, high investment without clear types of return, surrounded by buzzwords and lofty promises and not many practical use cases, etc. If you want to say I am in denial, then so be it, but I still stand by my opinion. I've been in the tech field far too long to see execs fall for this exact same type of sales pitch time and time again.

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You are 100% in denial. How can you say there are not many practical use cases? AI can be applied to all knowledge work. It can be applied to all creative work. That covers probably 2/3 of US workers.

You can argue that it is presently not being applied well, but it's really hard to argue that it's not useful. Maybe we don't know how the economics will play out or how the industry will look tomorrow (much less in a year or 5), but it's absolutely not a "fad".

ChatGPT has replaced Google search for me. If that's all it ever does, that's not a fad.

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I think his point is that robots are primarily used in shop spaces with production runs. Not in the field. Not saying it can't or won't happen, but a small mom and pop business won't be able to afford the computer driven fabrication machinery. And customers wanting something built on their land won't be able to afford the businesses that owns the AI driven welding operation at least in the near term. There will be a long term need for a good majority of welders. IMO.

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are some of you completely unaware of a thing called scale? Not everyone could afford a microwave, until they could. Not everyone could afford a tv, until they could. 50 years ago you had a computer room, because the computer took up the entire room and made a shite ton of noise. Etc x one million

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You’re not the only one. Even Google had to put AI into their search results.

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I was sold on ChatGPT being a Google-killer from day 1, especially since Google sabotaged their results just to sell more ads.

As a complete replacement for development, it's not going to cut it until you can get deterministic, consistent, repeatable results. A prompt shouldn't give you one result one time, and then nuke your database the second time you ask it.

The way AI works, it can't do that, at least for anything of noteworthy scale.

Most modern "AI" tools that people think about have really plateaued in its current useful capacity in the last few years.

The other funny part is things that were not called "AI" prior are continued to be advanced especially when it comes to things like coding. Machine learning techniques have been around much longer than the current generation of AI, and have continued development about the same pace.

Most modern software companies are still trying to figure out how these helpful AI tools like Claude can lower headcounts and speed up development. Which I believe they have... But the true downside.



It is the corner cases that AI actually increases the number of issues that hard to troubleshoot because the developers are not as intimately versed in the code. You fix one thing to break another... It is an endless cycle that gets worse as time goes along as you introduce everyone's favorite "Cyber security enhancements".

There is no learning module that exists to fix this kind of issues, and now your team is spending all of its time looking through code it has never looked at. Not even counting the interdependence hell that most large software products suffer from as they must maintain legacy systems as well. A lot of this is special purpose written code.

Once again where I work, we have already started to see the rebound effect of this from the last few years of no junior developers. We have started the process of ramping back up hiring new grads. We must keep that pipeline moving.

Code that writes fart apps was written by foreigners already. Majority of people in the USA dont hire software developers for those type of solutions that can be written purely by AI.

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Looks like he missed a spot in the middle. There’s a big hole in it

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It was for a decorative plaque.

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Will "Learn to Weld" become the new "Learn to Code" with AI coming for the coding jobs?

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As a plant guy for 39 years i'd have welder near the bottom of the list of needed craftsman. Below is my list of most needed in order.

Instrumentation Tech
Electrician
Millwright
Machinist
pipefitter
iron worker
welder
crane operators
scaffold (carpenter)
laborers

Most piping and structures are now built off site at fab shops and or overseas and shipped to site where the crafts I just listed put those together.

*edited* - to add crane operator. I forgot those guys

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As a plant guy for 39 years i'd have welder near the bottom of the list of needed craftsman.

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fine, replace it with any of those.

The comparison does not need to be welding. I picked it because it is often cited on this board

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It's not like AI is going to just go out and start writing stuff for you.

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Sure it will