Eli Mellen
10/19/2023, 7:33 PM• 43-45% of developers studied showed evidence of worry, anxiety and fear about whether they could succeed in this era of rapid generative-AI adoption with their current technical skill sets.
• Learning culture and belonging on software teams predicted a decrease in AI Skill Threat & an increase in both individual developer productivity and overall team effectiveness.
• 74% of software developers are planning to upskill in AI-assisted coding. However, there are important emerging equity gaps, with female developers and LGBTQ+ developers reporting significantly lower intent to upskill. On the other hand, Racially Minoritized developers reported significantly higher intentions to upskill.
• 56% of Racially Minoritized developers reported a negative perception of AI Quality, compared with 28% of all developers.Emphasis mine 😄
Mike Austin
10/19/2023, 7:51 PMEli Mellen
10/19/2023, 7:53 PMMarcelle Rusu (they/them)
10/19/2023, 9:36 PMDave Liepmann
10/20/2023, 8:40 AMOur final sample consisted of 3,267 participants: 2,472 ICs and 795 managersThe breakdown by race and gender seemed roughly representative of western industry; not so by sexual orientation (IMO). Analysis of individual questions had much lower N, e.g. AI threat by race was barely half at 1647. Selection bias probably plays multiple complected roles:
We recruited participants...on social media (e.g. X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Mastodon, LinkedIn, and Reddit), professional listservs of interest to developers, and on the Pluralsight Skills and Flow platforms as banner advertisementsMost obviously, this seems to pull from the minority of programmers tuned in to the pop culture of industry. Pluralsight's business model makes me take this with a pinch of salt, though it seems carefully done. For instance they pre-registered 5 hypotheses. On the other hand, the 5th has 5 subgroups, only one of which registered what seems to me a small difference (see Fig 8 for visualization of 4th bullet above) which is nevertheless reported as a headline. This gives me mild "data blip" feelings. I don't trust anything relying on self-reported productivity; this taints a bunch of the findings. (To the extent that it (or "team effectiveness") does measure something, I don't think it's what they intend or say they're measuring.) I'm curious what the exact wording was for the 2 "brilliance"-measuring questions, since it read like it would be difficult to disentangle several related beliefs.
Why would anyone not have intent to upskill other than switching careers, or only working on personal projects?The question is whether to
abeyer
10/20/2023, 10:42 PMThe question is whether toI don't agree with "switch" there, either, though. That seems to introduce a dichotomy that isn't real and isn't of any real benefit.upskillswitch to LLM-assisted programming
Dave Liepmann
10/22/2023, 10:39 AMabeyer
10/23/2023, 4:49 AM