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AI agent "Devin" making šŸ’° on Upwork for software engineering gigs

Find your 10x startup, job growth strong but unemployment jumps, IBM with layoffs

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Ā -HEADLINES-Ā 

šŸ“° AI agents making šŸ’° on Upwork for software engineering gigs

The internet has been ablaze šŸ”„ with talks of DevinĀ (full demo video), an AI agent that is specifically skilled in software development. Beta demos started making their way to Twitter yesterday, including one where Devin used a GitHub repo from an Upwork job posting to build software based on a single prompt.

If youā€™re unfamiliar with AI agents, they are designed to understand their environment and take actions on tasks that they assign themselves in order to achieve a specific goal. This is definite Skynet material. Up until this point, AI agents have been a cool idea, but the user experience and AI output have been sub-par at best.

Devin was developed by Cognition which is an AI lab backed by Peter Thiel focused on pushing the boundaries of AI reasoning. Previously, software developers could leverage AI to act as assistants to speed up their development process. Devin now has the capabilities to take on the entire sequence including debugging the code that it just wrote itself in a previous step šŸ¤Æ.

Itā€™s not all sunshine and rainbows

With every breakthrough, itā€™s good to have a healthy dose of the cost. Devin is using GPT-4 as its LLM which can get expensive very quickly. This is especially the case when agents can set their own tasks and act on them without human interference. What if it created some infinite loop?

Engineers might be safe for now.

Funny enough, Cognition is hiring a Software Engineer right now!

Check out their jobs page: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/cognition

Ā -THE LAYOFF REPORT-Ā 

šŸ“‰ IBM, Deadspin, Fidelityā€¦

Notable Layoffs this Week1

  • Phantom Auto, which created a platform for operating vehicles remotely, has shuttered after failing to secure more funding,Ā TechCrunch reports. Just over 100 people were employed at the company.

  • IBM is trimming the size of its marketing and communications team,Ā CNBC reports, citing an anonymous source. The number of job cuts is not yet known.

  • Deadspin's 11-person staffĀ was let go after the sports website was sold to a European startup, parent companyĀ G/O Media has confirmed.

  • Enthusiast Gaming is laying off 25% of its workforce, or about 45 employees,Ā Adweek writes.

  • Fidelity is laying off around 1,000 employees across regions and departments,Ā Forbes reports.

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Prospect organizes companies by multiple-potential and exit risk. They use the same data VCs use to give you an independent third party projection of what your equity is likely to be worth. Pretty neat tool and itā€™s FREE!

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