"Will AI replace software engineers?" is not the right question and stems from a misunderstanding of how tech affects humans and how they work.

Tech is a tool. It will take away some jobs, and then create new ones. Think of a combine tractor -- it took away crop picking jobs, but created a new job of combine tractor driver. It bumps productivity.

The correct frame is "how can software engineers (or anyone, for that matter) use AI to increase my productivity?" With that frame, AI does not replace engineers; rather, engineers are in the best position to understand how it deliver products faster and implement that understanding.

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direwolf20 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Combine tractors deleted jobs. You can't say there are as many combine tractor drivers as there were crop pickers. Anyway they don't need drivers now as they're fully robotic.

The only reason society didn't collapse: there were enough other jobs to absorb those displaced workers. Will there always be?

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game_the0ry 8 hours ago | parent [-]

But we were also able to feed a lot more people for a lot fewer resources in a lot less time.

> Combine tractors deleted jobs.

Number of jobs is not the metric to key off of. If that were the case, we should get rid of combine tractors and pay people to farm by hand bc it would increase the number of jobs.

	▲	direwolf20 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's been a suggestion to avoid societal collapse. People could be paid to do useless menial work as a proof of work, so that people will still have money and society won't collapse.

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ACCount37 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tech was a tool. Historically. This doesn't mean it'll stay that way.