The end of technology.

"Don't you know yet?"

"what do you know?"

"The company may be about to lay off employees on a large scale. It seems that the top management is making an assessment. Once the results come out, the company may usher in the largest layoffs in history. Many departments may be completely laid off, especially us code farmers."

"how is this possible?!"

Pete was surprised.

Although the semiconductor industry as a whole was in a downturn during this period, including news of layoffs from Intel, Nvidia, and IBM, Google is really not a serious semiconductor company. After all, Google’s main business is search, and its main profit comes from advertising. alliance.

As for all other businesses, almost all of them are laid out for the future.

You must know that Google is probably the only company in the world where 90.00% of the employees responsible for advertising support the remaining [-]% of the company.

Why does the downturn in the semiconductor market affect Google?

"Huh... I also think it's impossible, but I heard that Huaxia has developed a smart software, which is represented by Cisco. This software can be programmed independently, and it is said that it can replace more than 80.00% of the work of ordinary programmers. Of course, I also did it yesterday. The gossip heard, can't be confirmed yet."

"Intelligent software, replacing 80.00% of the work of programmers? Who developed it?"

"It is said to be a product produced by the newly established School of Planning and Design of Yanbei University of Physical Education."

"Ning Zi?"

"Who else?"

The two stared at each other silently.

Speaking of which, the name Ning Zi has really become a nightmare for many people.

From the beginning of the Mathematicians Conference, it has been stirring the hearts of countless people in the entire Bay Area, and then slapping the virtual currency market around the world to death...

They discussed Ning Zi a lot in private.

Especially for the alumni association of Huaqing in the Bay Area, the name Ning Zi is almost mentioned so that people's ears are cocooned.

After all, the love-hate relationship between Ning Zi and Hua Qing is really worth mentioning.

But even if he beat Pete to death, he would have heard such news again today.

What's even more frightening is that if the news is true, it's not just a matter of Google's layoffs. If the executives decide to lay off employees after evaluating it, it means that the efficiency of this intelligent software programming will be higher than that of their programmers, then it's not just a matter of layoffs. Google will use it, and almost every company that needs programming will probably introduce this software.

This also means that [-]% of the programmer jobs in the Bay Area will disappear out of thin air. It is conceivable how fierce the competition for such jobs will be in the future.

If you want to become that 20.00%, you probably need to be able to do things that smart software can't do, but now they don't know how much this smart software can do...

In an instant, Pete's originally good mood fell to the bottom, because he knew very well that there was a high probability that he was not among the 20.00%.

"This news... Seriously? Robin." Pete asked subconsciously.

"I also heard from John. He has a friend in Cisco's business department. It is said that Cisco has begun to readjust the business logic. In short, we should work harder during this period. The situation will definitely not be too optimistic. There are no holes. The wind."

Pete didn't know what to say.

Returning to the work station with coffee in hand, I wanted to do something, but I still couldn't concentrate.

He didn't dare to think about what else he could do if the job of programmer disappeared.

If he had known earlier that he might have continued to do research back then, it might have been a good choice to stay in school.Especially after graduating from Columbia University and returning to China to teach is still a plus...

A mess of thoughts were spinning in my head when I suddenly heard someone calling his name.

"Peter, hurry up and pack up..."

"Huh? I was fired?"

"What was fired? Didn't you read the notice on the chat? Hurry up and take the computer to the assessment!"

"Oh!" Pete let out a long breath, and quickly walked out of the office area with the computer and his colleagues in the department. He followed the flow of people to the elevator, got on the elevator, and the programmers of the entire department walked into a medium-sized conference room.

When everyone was seated, he saw the supervisor walk into the meeting room with a constipated expression.

"Okay, everyone, the company will release a random task next, and I need you to go all out to complete this task with the shortest possible time and the highest efficiency. No one should take it lightly. In a sense, your performance will Determine the future of many people, including my future.

You still have 10 minutes to prepare. If you need to go to the toilet or make coffee, you can go now. If you have low blood sugar, you can go to the next door to eat two pastries.Please hurry up and be back here in 10 minutes.I think you should be able to see how serious I am today, so I ask you to be serious too, okay, now start the timer, 10 minutes..."

Chapter 185

If he didn't know the gossip before, Pete would probably still wonder why the company suddenly made such a fuss.

But at this time, Pete probably understood what was going on. This assessment was probably to compare people with software.

The so-called future of the company is probably to choose to rely on software to take on most of the work, or to let programmers pay for their labor value as they do now.

There is no doubt that if the software that can be programmed independently is as strong as Robin said, it will definitely be more cost-effective than hiring so many programmers, so what they can do now is to try to defeat artificial intelligence on this track.

In fact, this competition is very unfair.

Because Pete has no news about this smart software at all, he believes that ordinary programmers like himself also have no news about it. They don't know what conditions software programming needs to give it, what language it can understand, and its database. what kind of composition...

So all we can do now is to do our best to do this well.

While everyone else was relaxing, Pete had turned on the computer and adjusted all the tools that might be needed.

This made him feel like going through the college entrance examination again.

He was also the best in school back then, but when he sat in the examination room, he could still feel a little bit of nervousness.

10 minute is fleeting.

When everyone was ready, the specific requirements for this assessment were also given on the big screen in the conference room.

Everyone needs to work together to develop an embedded applet immediately, so that Google Chrome can browse multiple file formats more conveniently.

The questions are not difficult, and certainly not easy.

It seems that everyone is also aware of the seriousness of the problem, and soon entered the state.

Pete received the task of working with a colleague to complete the interface document and a data simulation document.

This is actually a very important task, and this assessment did not say that the complexity of the actual scene data should be considered, so it is relatively not difficult.

Everyone seems to be aware of the seriousness of today's occasion, no one is fishing, and soon everyone is involved in the rhythm of work.

Seeing this scene, Pete was inexplicably full of confidence in his colleagues and himself. After all, they were all the best in the crowd, otherwise it would be impossible to defeat hundreds of people and be recruited by a company like Google.If even they can't handle this AI programming tool, the world will probably be captured by artificial intelligence, right?

Well, that's probably not possible.

Artificial intelligence cannot be so strong.

Really, Pete, who has entered the working state, only feels that his thinking is very active today, and he doesn’t even need to go out as frequently as usual to check the codes of his predecessors on various forums. His brain’s thinking is unprecedentedly active, and he even forgot the time for a while , At most, it is to exchange a few words with the people in the same group, and then everyone immediately throws themselves into work, until a piercing mobile phone rings.

Pete raised his head in dissatisfaction. The head of the department just asked that this assessment is very important and asked everyone to put their phones on silent.

He couldn't figure out why some people could ignore this request even after this time.

But when he looked up, he froze.

Because the mobile phone belongs to the supervisor himself.

He watched the supervisor pick up the phone and glanced at it, then his expression became serious, and then the ringtone of the phone was pressed, and he also walked out of the busy meeting room.

This made Pete suddenly have some bad premonitions, but he still shook his head, and then turned his attention to his computer. If there is a problem, he can help colleagues in other groups to share other tasks.

However, when he was short of the last few lines of code, the door of the conference room was pushed open, and the supervisor who had just left came in again, clapped his hands, and said with a frustrated expression: "Okay, everyone, you can stop The work to start, the assessment is over."

"Why? We're almost done."

"Yes, it will be completed soon, why is the assessment over?"

"It's not fair! At least we should wait until we finish the task first."

……

Many people started clamoring. Obviously, Pete was not the only one who knew some information in advance and understood the importance of today's assessment.It seems that everyone understands what the early end of the assessment means to them.

"Okay, everyone, it doesn't make sense anymore. I know that many of you know some news in advance. I can only say that the news you got is probably true. In the future world, we will not only have to compete with people, but even Software to compete. Yes, Huaxia people have developed a software that can be programmed independently, and you were indeed comparing efficiency with it just now.

But unfortunately, you are not the only group.In fact, Google has deployed a total of 537 similar assessment teams around the world, with a total of [-] people. Just when you just started to work, you started the assessment at the same time.Moreover, the twenty assessment groups are randomly assigned tasks, which means that the tasks you get are not the same.

The current result is that the AI ​​software has completed all twenty tasks, and has completed simple testing work, but none of the twenty assessment teams can complete even one task.I know you may not believe it, but this is the news I just got.

The testing of AI's self-produced software is a test done by X Lab in an environment built in advance.Moreover, the engineers participating in the test were blind tests. They received the programs that needed to be tested one hour after the assessment started, and they did not know whether the software sent to them was automatically generated by AI.

As a result, the tasks of the [-] assessment groups were all submitted by the results generated by AI, and the final test group gave all excellent results.I think you should understand what the concept of all excellent is.What is the concept of completing twenty tasks in one hour.

So folks, it doesn't make sense.Even if you give you another five hours to complete the task and send it for debugging, it doesn't make any sense.If you want to listen to my advice, it is to improve yourself quickly.Whether it is doing AI debugging or general programming work, it will be replaced by software in the future.

As far as I know, if you still want to have a job in this industry, you need to be proficient in lower-level computer logic, such as writing low-level drivers for hardware, which AI seems to be unable to do.Of course this may not be the same as the skills you currently have, but this is the way the world is.No matter what decision the company makes next, please understand.Now everyone can go back to work. "

After speaking, the supervisor turned and left, leaving a group of people looking at each other blankly.

What the supervisor said just now was really disappointing.

Especially for Pete, he has worked hard enough. It can even be said that today is the most energetic and efficient day since he joined Google. He feels that everyone has shown their best, but in such a short time, AI directly defeated [-] assessment groups, and the blind test results were all excellent.

Obviously, this is no longer a problem that can be solved by individual efforts. This is a dimensionality reduction blow from technological progress.Any struggle is futile.

Pete knew very well that his time at Google could be measured in hours.If he were the decision-maker of the company, it would be impossible to continue to support so many programmers to do jobs that can be replaced by any software.Compared with the huge number of programmers, using software is about zero cost.

As the supervisor just said, in the future, only high-end programmers will be valued and retained by the company, and their salaries may skyrocket.Artificial intelligence programs are not only as simple as being able to program, but also become the discriminator that best reflects human values.

The real value lies in the positions that it cannot replace. I believe that all companies would not mind spending a lot of money to hire such a boss to work.And those positions that can be replaced will no longer require people to do these things.

So that person in Huaxia shot from afar and directly ruined an industry.

Pete was a little absent-minded for a while, so he really couldn't spend the rest of his life peacefully?

……

It wasn't just Pete who felt the panic at this moment.

At this time, Silicon Valley is not the only company that is doing the same thing as Google.

When Cisco obtained the software franchise, it was natural to promote it in large companies in Silicon Valley immediately.

Although this software also has a paid personal version, but first of all, it is necessary to get the big customers who can cooperate for a long time and give Cisco a stable cash flow.

These high-tech companies in Silicon Valley are obviously Cisco's first large customers.

Whether it's Google, Microsoft, Apple, or Facebook, Twitter, and other software companies, they all have one thing in common: more programmers and more money.

This software can help these companies save a lot of labor costs. Each company only needs to give Cisco one-tenth of the saved labor costs, and Cisco can make a lot of money. In addition, the promotion of the personal version, Enough to bring Cisco back to life.

It is conceivable how much Cisco's promotion efforts are at this time.

After all, not only did they have to pay Ning Zi the agreed compensation within ten years, but they also had to pay for the expensive turbulence algorithm activation code.At the same time, the licensing of this smart software is not cheap.

Now Cisco is still getting the most basic version. According to the contract, the Academy of Science and Technology of China University of Science and Technology will also decide whether to continue to hand over subsequent software upgrades to them for operation based on their agency performance.According to the information they found, the software laboratory chaired by Ning Zi is still further testing and adding software functions.

In addition to programming, this software will also add functions such as AI animation production, AI video, and so on.

Even Ning Zi's software laboratory plans to create a more advanced dedicated large-scale digital engine for this software. The future plan is to allow AI to automatically generate and produce CG animations that are comparable to those made by the most famous teams in the market today.

This is another big revenue for Cisco.

With artificial intelligence currently showing the efficiency of making software, it is conceivable that in the future when making various special effects animations, it must be a good hand.It is impossible to say that Cisco will have a place in Hollywood in the future.

Similarly, the personal version of this software is equally powerful.

Although individual users, unlike enterprise users, can use supercomputers or advanced servers to maximize the effect of software, it is difficult to design large-scale software.However, after market research, Cisco management believes that software also has a market.

Especially for those users who are curious or longing for computers and programming, they can easily use software and home computers to design some personalized customized applets, such as TXT readers, or desktop management software, etc., or even create their own Develop a small game...

Moreover, the personal version can be developed to be more interesting, such as presented in the form of a game.

Cisco has actually started preparing to build the world's largest AI intelligent software exchange community, which is specially prepared for those individual users. At this time, Cisco's newly established software sales department is gearing up and preparing for a big fight.

Of course, this is also understandable. Before Cisco sent a delegation to China, Cisco was still on the verge of bankruptcy.

But it's different now.

The Cisco negotiating team won the most favorable compensation contract for them. In addition, they also obtained the agency right of the world's most advanced artificial intelligence technology.It is no exaggeration to say that Nicholas Harold, the new CEO of Cisco who was appointed in the face of danger, and the head of the negotiating team who went to China this time, has become a hero in the hearts of Cisco shareholders, which made him secure his current position. .

Of course, as Ning Zi concluded, happiness in this world is conserved.

Just like the happiness of Cisco shareholders is based on the sadness of countless people.

……

Pete received the dismissal email from the company at two o'clock in the afternoon.

There is nothing to say, the dismissal is very simple, and there is no need to do a job handover.

Pete felt that Google had done their best, and even let him eat a delicious lunch provided by the company for free on the last day, although he actually didn't have much appetite today.