Brain drain.

If you fire all your SWEs they won't sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for an AI collapse, they'll career shift. Maybe to an unemployment line and/or homelessness, maybe to something else productive, but either way they'll lose SWE skills.

If you close down all the SWE junior positions you'll strongly discourage young people training in the field. They'll do something else.

Then if you want to go back, who will you hire for it?

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svantana 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Why would anyone want to go back? It seems likely that the automated dev systems will just keep improving and get faster, cheaper, stronger.

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lionkor an hour ago | parent [-]

> automated dev systems

They are large language models. Not automated development machines. They hallucinate.

The goal post has not shifted since 2023 or so. Make an LLM that doesn't blatantly disregard knowledge it has, instructions it has been giving, over and over, and you win. If trillions of USD of investment can't do it, I'd be curious to see what can.

	▲	svantana 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There are definitely automated dev systems, of which an LLM is a part. The remaining part may be called a 'harness' or whatever. The quality of the generated software is another matter. If the AI is not good enough, then don't fire the devs. If/when the devs are no longer needed, I don't see why the need would return later, that was my point.

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nubg 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree with you, but it's a case of the tradegy of the commons. One single company cannot make a meaningful dent even with your insight.