AI allows executives to spend R&D to create a flywheel which builds more, faster, without hiring more. It makes every individual employee able to deliver more.

ICs dislike this because it raises expectations and puts the spotlight on delivery velocity. In a manufacturing analogy, it’s the same as adding robots that enables workers to pack twice as many pallets per day. You work the same hours, but you’re more tired, and the company pockets the profits.

Software Engineers are experiencing, many for the first time in their careers, what happens when they lose individual bargaining power. Their jobs are being redefined, and they have no say in the matter - especially in the US where “Union” is a forbidden word.

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atmavatar 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

ICs dislike this because executives haven't been shy that their goal in increasing productivity with LLMs is to reduce headcount. Additionally, we have 50 years of data showing that increased productivity only marginally increases pay, if at all - all the gains are captured by the executives.

The more appropriate tools for ICs are torches and pitchforks.

	▲	simianwords 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		IC's can cry about it because they did the exact same thing to the people they replaced.
	▲	dragonwriter 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> all the gains are captured by the executives. No, they are captured disproportionately by the haut bourgeois capitalists. The two groups overlap to an extent (when major capitalist are nominally employed by a firm they invest in, it is usually as an executive), but executives qua executives (that is, in their role as top level managerial employees) are not the main beneficiaries of increased productivity.

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politelemon 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> it’s the same as adding robots that enables workers to pack twice as many pallets per day.

It isn't this. This is the executive's misinterpretation.