Definitely. Carmack is no dummy, but I’d argue this comment section proves that he gave a pretty bad answer here (bad for the audience, not if you know Carmack and what he means).
I guess it’s the impostor syndrome, but many programmers have an out-of-place reductionist view of their work. It’s not simple, and crud boilerplate proves little about the future prospects.
Managers OTOH really are in the zone of GPT parity. At least a much larger subset of their day-to-day activities. So are many soft skills. In fact, soft communication is where LLMs shine above all other tasks, as we’ve seen over and over in the last few months. This is supported by how it performs on eg essay-style exams vs leetcode, where it breaks down entirely as it’s venturing into any territory with less training data.
Now, does that mean I think lowly of managers? No, managers have a crucial role, and the ones who are great are really really crucial, and the best can salvage a sinking ship. But most managers aren’t even good. That has a lot to do with poor leadership and outdated ideas of how to select for and train them.
> Definitely. Carmack is no dummy, but I’d argue this comment section proves that he gave a pretty bad answer here (bad for the audience, not if you know Carmack and what he means).
I dunno, I got what he meant from the start, and the same advice was given by many people in many forms, usually in variant of "well, the business doesn't give a shit about details but the end product".
> Now, does that mean I think lowly of managers? No, managers have a crucial role, and the ones who are great are really really crucial, and the best can salvage a sinking ship. But most managers aren’t even good. That has a lot to do with poor leadership and outdated ideas of how to select for and train them.
I joked some managers could be replaced by forward rule in mailing system, ChatGPT is an upgrade on that.
Definitely. Carmack is no dummy, but I’d argue this comment section proves that he gave a pretty bad answer here (bad for the audience, not if you know Carmack and what he means).
I guess it’s the impostor syndrome, but many programmers have an out-of-place reductionist view of their work. It’s not simple, and crud boilerplate proves little about the future prospects.
Managers OTOH really are in the zone of GPT parity. At least a much larger subset of their day-to-day activities. So are many soft skills. In fact, soft communication is where LLMs shine above all other tasks, as we’ve seen over and over in the last few months. This is supported by how it performs on eg essay-style exams vs leetcode, where it breaks down entirely as it’s venturing into any territory with less training data.
Now, does that mean I think lowly of managers? No, managers have a crucial role, and the ones who are great are really really crucial, and the best can salvage a sinking ship. But most managers aren’t even good. That has a lot to do with poor leadership and outdated ideas of how to select for and train them.