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0 pointsalexpotato4mo ago0 comments

Speaking as someone who has been both a SRE/DevOps from all levels from IC to Global Head of a team:

- I 100% believe this is happening and is probably going to be the case in the next 6 months. I've seen Claude and Grok debug issues when they only had half of the relevant evidence (e.g. Given A and B, it's most likely X). It can even debug complex issues between systems using logs, metrics etc. In other words, everything a human would do (and sometimes better).

- The situation described is actually not that different from being a SRE manager. e.g. as you get more senior, you aren't doing the investigations yourself. It's usually your direct reports that are actually looking at the logs etc. You may occasionally get involved for more complex issues or big outages but the direct reports are doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

- All of the above being said, I can imagine errors so weird/complex etc that the LLMs either can't figure it out, don't have the MCP or skill to resolve it or there is some giant technology issue that breaks a lot of stuff. Facebook engineers using angle grinders to get into the data center due to DNS issues comes to mind for the last one.

Which probably means we are all going to start to be more like airline pilots:

- highly trained in debugging AND managing fleets of LLMs

- managing autonomous systems

- around "just in case" the LLMs fall over

P.S. I've been very well paid over the years and being a SRE is how I feed my family. I do worry, like many, about how all of this is going to affect that. Sobering stuff.

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4nonverbal-alit4mo ago· 3 in thread

> Which probably means we are all going to start to be more like airline pilots:

Airline pilots are still employed because of regulations. The industry is heavily regulated and the regulations move very slowly because of its international cooperative nature. The regulations dictate how many crew members should be on board for each plane type and other various variables. All the airlines have to abide by the rules of the airspace they're flying over to keep flying.

The airlines on the other hand along with the technology producers (airbus for example) are pursuing to reduce number of heads in the cockpit. While their recent attempt to get rid of co-pilots in EASA land has failed [1], you can see the amount of pursuit and investment. The industry will continue to force through cost optimization as long as there's no barrier to prevent. The cases where automation has failed will be just a cost of the business, since the life of the deceased is no concern to the company's balance sheet.

Given the lack of regulation in the software, I suspect the industry will continue the cost optimization and eliminate humans in the loop, except in the regulated domains.

[1] - https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/research-projects/emco-sipo-ex... ; while this was not a direct push to get rid of all pilots, it's a stepping stone in that direction.

_zagj4mo ago

It's crazy how many developers are starry-eyed optimists about all of this, just casually assuming that they'll still be highly-paid, well-respected professionals ("we'll be like pilots, mostly monitoring the autopilot") if this technology doesn't hit a wall in the next year or two, despite lacking any of the legal protections that other professions enjoy.

alexpotatoOP4mo ago

The below post is a great explanation of how the airlines are essentially at the mercy of the pilot unions: https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines

nunez4mo ago

Regulation and strong unions are the only thing holding airlines back from doing what the cruise lines did long ago: importing all of their labor from cheaper countries and paying them trash while working them to the bone.

In the meantime, captains at legacy airlines are the only ones getting paid well. Everyone else struggles to make ends meet. All while airlines constantly compain that they "can't find enough qualified pilots." Where have I heard this said before...

Also, every pilot is subject to furloughs, which happen every time economic headwinds blow a little too hard, which resets their tenure, and their payscales, if they switch employers.

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