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.

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Espressosaurus 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sampling bias.

You're on a site dominated by software engineers, in the field of software engineering, and likely have a lot of software engineer friends.

Translators got fucked, there's very little market for them compared now compared to decades past. Find their forums and I bet you'd have seen similar worry.

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tjr 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I also hear the most from software engineers, but then again, I don't really follow translation or government research discussion forums.

	▲	citizenpaul 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>government research discussion Its bad. The most depressing part is that it is because of de-funding not AI. While at the same time this field is probably one of the only venues for escaping the AI sinkhole but its being dismantled rather than built up. Source my partner in research.

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goostavos 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A lot of pride is wrapped up in the craft of writing software. If that goes away (I don't think it will) it would leave a lot of people wondering how they spent all their time.

(or something like that. Obviously I'm too well adjusted to have these existential worries)

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francisofascii 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Software engineers see the most dramatic change, and they haven't had to worry about job security for the last 25 years.

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SoftTalker 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tractors replaced farm hands, not farmers. Software developers are farm hands.

	▲	pixl97 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Why not both. An absolutely massive numbers of farmers were replaced too. Farm management was rather grueling in the early 1900s. Farmers that embraced mechanization were able to buy up surrounding farms that didn't and grew in size. As the equipment got better the amount of work per acre farmed dropped so farms expanded with more acreage. Farmers and hands dropped in number.