I don't get this reasoning, and yet it is pervasive. Just because non-engineering people come up to you with apps they have created does not mean AI has or will replace software engineers.

Consider:

- I can read about my symptoms from Dr. Google, try a lifestyle change, herbal remedy, or over-the-counter drug, and that may actually work. This does not mean in the slightest that doctor are being made obsolete

- I can create music with generative AI, without needing any understanding of music theory, no taste for music, no creativity. This does not mean people with musical talent are being made obsolete at all.

- I can, with the help of AI, work on DIY projects around the house. This does not in any way mean engineers are being made obsolete.

Who will be helping domain experts to elucidate what they actually need through prototype-refine cycles? Who will be writing and maintaining the operating systems, the languages, the version control systems, th editors and terminal emulators, knowledge/document management systems, the PaaS platforms, etc that these hordes of hobbyist software creators depend on?

Have these people actually properly tested their creations to ensure they are robust? Do they even understand the edge cases that could arise? Is their work secure? Cooking up some quick thing based on some prompt does not equate to engineering whatsoever.

Perhaps you fail to see this because, like many others, you subscribe to the fallacy that the value of software engineering primarily lies in the code produced itself, the arrangements of bits manufactured. It is not; a project is primarily valuable as a theory and abstraction building process. See https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf

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anonzzzies 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I guess maybe it's your definition of 'software engineers' ; if you meant that to mean people who know what they are doing, then there is a massive gap. However if you mean people who are hired as software engineer/developer then it's already replacing many and will replace many more. Many of these are worth absolutely nothing and never have been. They survived because software was considered magic and they talk a lot in meetings and 'jumping on calls' to appear busy and engaged, not because they ever were good at making software. That's the vast majority; millions upon millions in outsource factories for instance who just do exactly what a ticket says and then go to the next without caring if the rest implodes behind them etc.

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borski 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That was just as true a decade ago, and two decades ago, as it is today.

Bad “software engineers” have always existed. That hasn’t changed.

	▲	anonzzzies 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, but now they will be LLMs , which is the point; they won't be millions of humans who get paid. The point of GP was that it doesn't replace programmers; it does and will more so, at scale, because LLMs are better than all the bad ones and that's the majority, by far.

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euwuw 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This has been true for god knows how long?

Steve jobs said it - the difference between the average and best software engineer is a huge.

The best software engineers aren’t going away at all. The shittier ones will be using llm’s more so and eventually be out of a job as llm’s improve.