The tractor analogy keeps coming up in these threads, and I think it's actually more pessimistic than people realize.

Tractors didn't just change farming. They emptied entire regions.

What saved the people (not the communities) was that other industries absorbed them. Factory work, services, construction. The question for software isn't whether AI creates efficiency. It's whether there's somewhere else for displaced engineers to go.

I've been writing code professionally for 16 years. The honest answer is I don't know. The optimistic scenario is that AI makes software so cheap that we build things we never would have attempted. The pessimistic one is that most of what needed building gets built, and the remaining work fits in fewer hands.

Both seem plausible. I'd bet on somewhere in between, but I'm not confident enough to tell anyone starting out that they should ignore the risk entirely.

What I do not understand is why is it that software engineers are so afraid? I have heard from so many other white collar people that AI already changed their job entirely (technical salesmen, translators, designers, government researchers, the list goes on), yet it is the software engineers that I hear the most noise from.

Software engineering is one of the most intellectually demanding categories of white collar work. I’m not saying it is invincible, but I do not see why SWEs should worry more.

> The pessimistic one is that most of what needed building gets built, and the remaining work fits in fewer hands.

I don't think that's true, mainly because if it were true it would have happened a long time ago. We will never settle on one version of a thing (let it be messaging, recipes, notes, image galleries, etc...). New variants emerge over time, the only thing AI does is accelerate this.

I thought like you 5 months ago.

I've come to the conclusion that we won't be replaced, because a majority of our work is to split up business questions, probe, ask around for other people's knowledge, assemble, build a plan etc.

AI only knows what it knows, it doesn't go after the unknowns. It is reactionary in its nature.

Now, let's say something happens and I'm wrong: let's think about that. The AI can do stuff like that. I think when that happens the economy as we know it collapses, and we've got bigger fish to fry. I would say, if this happens, nearly all white-collar jobs are disappearing.

The tractor analogy continues to work. Take a look at right to repair.

I think the main "concern" is that Senior devs, code, essentially the entire current working body of programmers is going to bootstrap AI, and once they're gone, they'll be no one to replace them. And at that point, there's no fall back system.

>build things we never would have attempted

I think there is something here but not much. The majority of business are carrying some SAS products that are an entire marching band when all they want are a drummer and guitar player. Making bespoke efficient tools will surge for sure.

The problem is that the building of these tools is all the same end. Increasing industry control to few players and further widening wealth inequality. Which leads us back to where does everyone go to work at that point?

We are at some sort of societal inflection point where we need new industries but only 20% of degrees are in some sort of science. 80% of degrees are in what is becoming nothing more than resume checkboxing for jobs that no longer will exist. Who is going to make the next big industry breakthough with 20% of degrees in business management? I don't see any push to get people in college for actual meaningful progress.

It seems it did happen, humans have hit post scarcity in survival terms(unevenly distributed). However we have in no way planned for what happens here, fairness has never been a priority. The cuthroat capitalism that made this possible is now eating itself with no plans to change.