| If you missed this recent post, I think you'll appreciate it: https://defragzone.substack.com/p/techs-dumbest-mistake-why-... > Now, let’s talk about the real winners in all this: the programmers who saw the chaos coming and refused to play along. The ones who didn’t take FAANG jobs but instead went deep into systems programming, AI interpretability, or high-performance computing. These are the people who actually understand technology at a level no AI can replicate. > And guess what? They’re about to become very expensive. Companies will soon realize that AI can’t replace experienced engineers. But by then, there will be fewer of them. Many will have started their own businesses, some will be deeply entrenched in niche fields, and others will simply be too busy (or too rich) to care about your failing software department. > Want to hire them back? Hope you have deep pockets and a good amount of luck. The few serious programmers left will charge rates that make executives cry. And even if you do manage to hire them, they won’t stick around to play corporate politics or deal with useless middle managers. They’ll fix your broken systems, invoice you an eye-watering amount, and walk away. |
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| ▲ | rybosworld 2 days ago | parent [-] | | This entire article reads like hopium. And it seems predicated on the false belief that companies are going to try to replace their entire workforce with AI overnight: > "Imagine a company that fires its software engineers, replaces them with AI-generated code, and then sits back" It should go without saying this is not even possible at the moment. Will it be possible one day? Yes, probably. And when that day comes, the fantasies this author has dreamed up will be irrelevant. I've said it before and I'll say it again: It shocks me that a forum filled with tech professionals, is so blindly biased against AI that they refuse to acknowledge what changes are coming. All of these conversations boil down to: "The LLM's of today couldn't replace me." That's probably true for most folks. What's also true is that ChatGPT was released less than 3 years ago. And we've seen it go from a novelty with no real use, to something that can write actually decent research papers and gets better at coding by the month. "B-b-but there's no guarantee it will continue to improve!" is one of the silliest trains of thought a computer scientist could hold. | | |
| ▲ | vunderba 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Couple things: 1. The "LLMs are still in their infancy" argument is frequently trotted out but let's be clear - GPTs were introduced back in 2018 - so SEVEN years ago. 2. It shocks me that a forum filled with tech professionals, is so blindly biased against AI that they refuse to acknowledge what changes are coming. This feels like a corollary to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. I don't think you can extrapolate that a few dozen loudly dissenting voices is necessarily representative of majority opinion. 3. I would like to see a citation of ChatGPT releasing actual "decent research papers". 4. If AIs get to the point of actually acting in a completely autonomous fashion and replace software engineers - then there's no reason to believe that they won't also obliterate 90% of other white-collar jobs (including other STEM) so at that point we're looking at needing to completely re-evaluate our economic system possibly with UBI, etc. | | |
| ▲ | throw234234234 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I actually think sadly it can replace "just software engineers" at least in the short and medium term. Not because it can't do other careers (if employed effectively) but because that's what they are actively targeting and they have the domain knowledge in it, and it being a public open profession amenable to RL. There's millions of code pieces online, lots of public job briefs and success criteria defined in it, etc etc. They will throw every research and ML trick at it just to displace SWE's because that's what they really really want to do. IMO this is particularly true for OpenAI. Other jobs, once seeing the bargaining power of SWE's fall and be destroyed, will resist integration of AI from the big corps and see a much slower disruption - this is the most rational thing to do to preserve your enterprise. Especially given most intellectual economic jobs are at best oligopolies at the large end. OpenAI just released their "Lancer" benchmark which basically shows their intent - replace the economic value of software development from coding to engineering manager tasks. Nothing is safe pretty much - I don't recommend people enter the industry anymore; its just anxiety you don't need (i.e. companies together collectively worth in the trillions are trying to destroy your economic value). Not that it will take "good high economic mobility jobs"; my disappointment is more that this effort for society is better spent in many other domains (medicine, building, robotics) which at least have some benefit from the disruption but no - its all about SWE's. Must be what their VC's want from them and/or keeps the fear/hype train going most effectively. |
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| ▲ | itsoktocry a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >I've said it before and I'll say it again: It shocks me that a forum filled with tech professionals, is so blindly biased against AI that they refuse to acknowledge what changes are coming. I have the exact same reaction reading this stuff on HN. It's hilarious, scary and sad, all at the same time. The speed at which these tools have improved has completely convinced me that these things are going to take over. But I don't fear it, I'm excited about it. But I don't write code for code's sake; I'm using code to solve problems. | |
| ▲ | dmix 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Even if we don't write code software engineers (or technically minded people) will be able to coordinate hundreds of AI bots better than the average person and manage the systems. If there's a day where programming is not as valuable I'm pretty confident I can find some way to be useful in the future economy. And if it's real AGI, not airplanes flying themselves with a pilot stuff, then we probably will have to re-think employment anyway | | |
| ▲ | rybosworld 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Even if we don't write code software engineers (or technically minded people) will be able to coordinate hundreds of AI bots better than the average person and manage the systems. There might be a period of time where product management and qa are still done by people, but I think that period will be transitory and short. I think software engineers in general are grossly underestimating the probability they will be replaced. On a 20-30 year timeline, that probability might be close to 100%. Probably, it will also be gradual, and those who are displaced (starting with least experienced, to most), will not be able to find similar employment. We are all more or less opting into this without a fight. | | |
| ▲ | dmix 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > We are all more or less opting into this without a fight. I don’t fear my dev job becoming less valuable as large chunks become automated. Like I said if it happens I will figure out a way to be useful to society in other ways, even if it’s inventing things for AI to do or controlling AI to do the job of a bunch of devs. I will adapt like everyone has in history and make myself valuable in new ways. “Nothing is static. Everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart.” |
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