Maybe, or 300 of those engineers will be working for 3 new companies while the other 600 struggle to find gainful employment, even after taking large pay cuts, as their skillsets are replaced rather than augmented. It’s way too early to call afaict

▲ aurareturn 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Because it's so easy to make new software and sell it using AI, 6 of those 600 people who are unemployed will have ideas that require 100 engineers each to make. They will build a prototype, get funding, and hire 99 engineers each.

There are also plenty of ideas that aren't profitable with 2 salaries but is with 1. Many will be able to make those ideas happen with AI helping.

▲ breuleux 5 days ago | parent [-]

It'll be easy to make new software. I don't know if it's going to be easy to sell it.

The more software AI can write, the more of a commodity software will become, and the harder the value of software will tank. It's not magic.

▲ aurareturn 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

  The more software AI can write, the more of a commodity software will become, and the harder the value of software will tank. It's not magic.

Total size of the software industry will still increase.

Today, a car repairshop might have a need for a custom software that will make their operations 20% more efficient. But they don't have nearly enough money to hire a software engineer to build it for them. With AI, it might be worth it for an engineer to actually do it.

Plenty of little examples like that where people/businesses have custom needs for software but the value isn't high enough.

▲

monknomo 4 days ago | parent [-]

this seems pretty unlikely to me. I am not sure I have seen any non-digital business desire anything more custom than "a slightly better spreadsheet". Like, sure I can imagine a desire for something along the lines of "jailbroken vw scanner" but I think you are grossly overestimating how much software impacts a regular business's efficiency

	▲	mdaniel 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		As an alternative perspective, if this hypothetical MCP future materializes and the repair shop could ask Gemini to contact all the vendors, find the part that's actually in stock, preferably within 25 miles, sort by price, order it, and (if we're really going out on a limb) get a Waymo to go pick it up, it will free up the tradeperson to do what they're skilled at doing For comparison to how things are today: - contacting vendors requires using the telephone, sitting on hold, talking to a person, possibly navigating the phone tree to reach the parts department - it would need to understand redirection, so if call #1 says "not us, but Jimmy over at Foo Parts has it" - finding the part requires understanding the difference between the actual part and an OEM compatible one - ordering it would require finding the payment options they accept that intersect with those the caller has access to, which could include an existing account (p.o. or store credit) - ordering it would require understanding "ok, it'll be ready in 30 minutes" or "it's on the shelf right now" type nuance Now, all of those things are maybe achievable today, with the small asterisk that hallucinations are fatal to a process that needs to work
	▲	aurareturn 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It’s just an example. Plenty of businesses can use custom software to become more efficient but couldn’t in the past because of how expensive it was.

▲ nikolayasdf123 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> sell it

exactly. have you seen App Store recently? over-saturaded with junk apps. try to sell something these days. it is notoriously hard to make any money there.

▲ nikolayasdf123 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

more like 300 working, 60,000,000 struggle