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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 03 2018, @12:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the auto-programmatic-asphyxiation dept.

The Coders Programming Themselves Out of a Job

In 2016, an anonymous confession appeared on Reddit: "From around six years ago up until now, I have done nothing at work." As far as office confessions go, that might seem pretty tepid. But this coder, posting as FiletOFish1066, said he worked for a well-known tech company, and he really meant nothing. He wrote that within eight months of arriving on the quality assurance job, he had fully automated his entire workload. "I am not joking. For 40 hours each week, I go to work, play League of Legends in my office, browse Reddit, and do whatever I feel like. In the past six years, I have maybe done 50 hours of real work." When his bosses realized that he'd worked less in half a decade than most Silicon Valley programmers do in a week, they fired him. The tale quickly went viral in tech corners of the web, ultimately prompting its protagonist to delete not just the post, but his entire account.

About a year later, someone calling himself or herself Etherable posted a query to Workplace on Stack Exchange, one of the web's most important forums for programmers: "Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?" The conflicted coder described accepting a programming gig that had turned out to be "glorified data entry"—and, six months ago, writing scripts that put the entire job on autopilot. After that, "what used to take the last guy like a month, now takes maybe 10 minutes." The job was full-time, with benefits, and allowed Etherable to work from home. The program produced near-perfect results; for all management knew, their employee simply did flawless work.

The post proved unusually divisive, and comments flooded in. (It's now been viewed nearly half a million times.) Reactions split between those who felt Etherable was cheating, or at least deceiving, the employer, and those who thought the coder had simply found a clever way to perform the job at hand. Etherable never responded to the ensuing discussion. Perhaps spooked by the attention—media outlets around the world picked up the story—the user vanished, leaving that sole contribution to an increasingly crucial conversation about who gets to automate work, and on what terms.

Call it self-automation, or auto-automation. At a moment when the specter of mass automation haunts workers, rogue programmers demonstrate how the threat can become a godsend when taken into coders' hands, with or without their employers' knowledge. Since both FiletOFish1066 and Etherable posted anonymously and promptly disappeared, neither were able to be reached for comment. But their stories show that workplace automation can come in many forms and be led by people other than executives.

Career suicide: The most important job for programmers.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @12:45AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @12:45AM (#743159)

    Easy, when automation increases productivity, it ends meaning the same people do more for the same money. In some cases, it means less people too if so much output is unneeded. Any productivity bonus is hoarded by "others", not by the workers in the way of time (maybe contracting more people to compensate) or just money. And no, we are running out of new job types (with an increasing number of bullshit jobs), as well as changes going too damn fast to retrain effectively.

    People would like to have money to eat (or imagine, spend on hobbies after eating), that is the "wrong".

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  • (Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Wednesday October 03 2018, @02:46AM (9 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 03 2018, @02:46AM (#743216) Journal

    Easy, when automation increases productivity, it ends meaning the same people do more for the same money.

    And yet, we don't see that myth in real life. Total compensation tracks [heritage.org] productivity pretty well.

    People would like to have money to eat (or imagine, spend on hobbies after eating), that is the "wrong".

    Necessities aside from big ticket items like rent or health care tend to be pretty damn cheap, especially on a programmer's wages. Maybe we could just focus on making that stuff cheaper rather than more expensive?

    • (Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @04:19AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @04:19AM (#743252)

      rent or health care tend to be pretty damn cheap, especially on a programmer's wages

      False. The free market wage for programmers is $0. Rent, health care, and food are prohibitively expensive on a programmer's wages.

      There are only two kinds of people who can afford to work as programmers: the overentitled rich (which you are, since you believe rent and health care are cheap) and penniless nerds (who lack social skills to do anything else, for whom programming is a compulsion).

      You seem confused, khallow. Perhaps you should try spending less of your undeserved wealth on recreational drugs.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @06:40AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @06:40AM (#743285)

        TIL: I am rich. I've suspected it for a while.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday October 03 2018, @01:11PM (6 children)

      by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday October 03 2018, @01:11PM (#743367) Journal

      Easy, when automation increases productivity, it ends meaning the same people do more for the same money.

      And yet, we don't see that myth in real life. Total compensation tracks [heritage.org] productivity pretty well.

      Both of those statements can be true together. The programmer gets hired, automates their job, then gets fired. Their manager now gets the same amount of work done with fewer people, making them "more productive", and they get a bonus meaning more compensation. But the original programmer who actually wrote the code is still stuck eating Ramen Noodles every night because they no longer have a job. The manager gets paid more for doing less work, while the programmer gets paid nothing even though the work is still getting done.

      Note that the study you linked to tracks "average" pay and "average" productivity...so if ten people do ten hours of work and each get one dollar of pay, or one person does ten hours of work and gets ten dollars of pay while the other nine people do nothing and earn nothing...in that study, those two situations would appear to be identical. The real problem of automation is *inequality*, not lack of productivity. Heritage Foundation says nothing about that problem.

      If we look at some graphs that break that income figure into qunitiles...we can see most of the gains of the past 40-50 years going to the top quintile. The top 5% had income growth of 112%, top quintile had 91%, while the middle quintile was at only 33%. The gains are consolidated in the hands of the people who can afford to buy the solution rather than the people who actually create it:
      https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/09/19/u-s-household-incomes-a-50-year-perspective [advisorperspectives.com]

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Wednesday October 03 2018, @09:06PM

        by krishnoid (1156) on Wednesday October 03 2018, @09:06PM (#743672)

        Their manager now gets the same amount of work done with fewer people, making them "more productive", and they get a bonus meaning more compensation. But the original programmer who actually wrote the code is still stuck eating Ramen Noodles every night because they no longer have a job.

        Hmm ... until they automate the manager's position out of existence too. Maybe programmers need more bitterness and vengeance in their hearts.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 04 2018, @01:27AM (4 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 04 2018, @01:27AM (#743796) Journal

        Note that the study you linked to tracks "average" pay and "average" productivity...so if ten people do ten hours of work and each get one dollar of pay, or one person does ten hours of work and gets ten dollars of pay while the other nine people do nothing and earn nothing...in that study, those two situations would appear to be identical.

        Ok, so what makes you think this is a real concern?

        The real problem of automation is *inequality*, not lack of productivity. Heritage Foundation says nothing about that problem.

        Then it's not much of one. Inequality is a notoriously weak problem. Why should I care that some people have a vastly higher income and wealth than me? That has no bearing on my problems.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday October 04 2018, @01:38PM (3 children)

          by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday October 04 2018, @01:38PM (#744062) Journal

          The real problem of automation is *inequality*, not lack of productivity. Heritage Foundation says nothing about that problem.

          Then it's not much of one. Inequality is a notoriously weak problem. Why should I care that some people have a vastly higher income and wealth than me? That has no bearing on my problems.

          Yes, it does.

          Increased inequality causes increased crime. Which puts you and your property at risk, and may also raise insurance premiums or taxes to pay for the required emergency services.

          You can reduce that crime with social welfare programs, which again raise your taxes.

          There's also the issue that you are also going to lose your job once there's no longer enough people who can afford to buy the products or services which you produce.

          And there's also the fact that you're just an ass apparently...did your mother never teach you to treat others how you'd like to be treated? Allowing people to starve on the streets is not generally a good way to do that...

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 05 2018, @10:13AM (2 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 05 2018, @10:13AM (#744564) Journal

            Increased inequality causes increased crime. Which puts you and your property at risk, and may also raise insurance premiums or taxes to pay for the required emergency services.

            Why would that happen? Is Bill Gates going to break into my apartment?

            • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday October 05 2018, @11:23AM (1 child)

              by urza9814 (3954) on Friday October 05 2018, @11:23AM (#744581) Journal

              No, but the software developer who lost his job after automating it and who therefore can't afford to feed himself might.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 06 2018, @12:04PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 06 2018, @12:04PM (#745012) Journal
                Why would he be unemployed much less unable to feed himself? Inequality doesn't imply poor.