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0 pointsAlotOfReading1mo ago0 comments

Don't take this as criticizing LLMs as a whole, but architects also don't call themselves engineers. Engineers are an entirely distinct set of roles that among other things validate the plan in its totality, not only the "new" 1/5th. Our job spans both of these.

"Architect" is actually a whole career progression of people with different responsibilities. The bottom rung used to be the draftsmen, people usually without formal education who did the actual drawing. Then you had the juniors, mid-levels, seniors, principals, and partners who each oversaw different aspects. The architects with their name on the building were already issuing high level guidance before the transition instead of doing their own drawings.

    When was the last time you reviewed the machine code produced by a compiler?

Last week, to sanity check some code written by an LLM.

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throwup2381mo ago

> Engineers are an entirely distinct set of roles that among other things validate the plan in its totality, not only the "new" 1/5th. Our job spans both of these.

Where this analogy breaks down is that the work you’re describing is done by Professional Engineers that have strict licensing and are (criminally) liable for the end result of the plans they approve.

That is an entirely different role from the army of civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers (some who are PEs and some who are not) who do most of the work for the principal engineer/designated engineer/engineer of record, that have to trust building codes and tools like FEA/FEM that then get final approval from the most senior PE. I don’t think the analogy works, as software engineers rarely report to that kind of hierarchy. Architects of Record on construction projects are usually licensed with their own licensing organization too, with layers of licensed and unlicensed people working for them.

AlotOfReadingOP1mo ago

That diversity of roles is what "among other things" was meant to convey. My job at least isn't terribly different, except that licensing doesn't exist and I don't get an actual stamp. My company (and possibly me depending on the facts of the situation) is simply liable if I do something egregious that results in someone being hurt.

blibble1mo ago

> Where this analogy breaks down is that the work you’re describing is done by Professional Engineers that have strict licensing and are (criminally) liable for the end result of the plans they approve.

there are plenty of software engineers that work in regulated industries, with individual licensing, criminal liability, and the ability to be struck off and banned from the industry by the regulator

... such as myself

bilbo0s1mo ago

Sure.

But no one stops you from writing software again.

It's not that PE's can't design or review buildings in whatever city the egregious failure happened.

It's that PE's can't design or review buildings at all in any city after an egregious failure.

It's not that PE's can't design or review hospital building designs because one of their hospital designs went so egregiously sideways.

It's that PE's can't design or review any building for any use because their design went so egregiously sideways.

I work in an FDA regulated software area. I need 510k approval and the whole nine. But if I can't write regulated medical or dental software anymore, I just pay my fine and/or serve my punishment and go sling React/JS/web crap or become a TF/PyTorch monkey. No one stops me. Consequences for me messing up are far less severe than the consequences for a PE messing up. I can still write software because, in the end, I was never an "engineer" in that hard sense of the word.

Same is true of any software developer. Or any unlicensed area of "engineering" for that matter. We're only playing at being "engineers" with the proverbial "monopoly money". We lose? Well, no real biggie.

PE's agree to hang a sword of damocles over their own heads for the lifetime of the bridge or building they design. That's a whole different ball game.

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