I dont read linkedin. I was not referencing linkedin. Among other sources, the primary one is literally AI companies themselves. And people close to them.

The "it will replace workers" is pro-ai talking and selling point.

I agree there, I think if we differentiate between first and second order AI companies (companies producing models vs applying those models to everyday tasks) I do think a lot of the hype comes from the 2nd order companies, since they necessarily must make a bold claim to be worthy of VC money. A lot of the 1st order companies are marketing their AI to consumers who are doing work, rather than looking to market their AI to business who are replacing those consumers. If anyone has the means to replace a worker, it's definitely OpenAI or Anthropic moreso than a 2nd order startup trying to replace the human doing the job.

And on a restrospective point, I think one of the easiest jobs for AI to do right now is software engineering. But on the whole, while there certainly have been layoffs, software engineering hiring has still been mostly a net positive[0].

And that's just for formal software engineering jobs; if we define a software engineer as a human creating software, then I think AI as a tool has created a LOT more (perhaps not employed as one, but say, a realtor creating their own sofware for personal use) software engineers than the amount that it's actually replaced. In a sense, because of AI, there are more software engineers now than ever before.

[0]: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-job-...