When software engineers spent the last 50 years eliminating the work of clerical, secretarial, and dozens of other back-office functions, were they concerned about how those people would feed their families? Do you think anybody but other software engineers feels any sorrow for them today, now that they are facing the same fate?

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torben-friis 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

While I mostly agree with you, there's an argument to be made that classical programming tended to eliminate the mechanical parts of work that people hate doing, while AI is removing the intellectually stimulating part.

It's not fun to think of a future where knowledge workers become irrelevant in society and we're back to just physical work and managerial elites.

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SoftTalker 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not really one of them, but there are many developers for whom the intellectually stimulating part is designing the system. Writing the code was boring drudgery that they hated doing. They tend to call themselves "architects" or something similar, not "programmers."

	▲	Xenoamorphous 38 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		How long until the LLMs run circles around the best software “architect” out there?
	▲	RALaBarge 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Finally, someone who gets me!

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econ 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Plenty of people pay the bills with work they hate doing.

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mannanj 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That wasn't software engineers eliminating that work. And neither is it today AI eliminating software jobs. Let's name the straw man in the room: it's humans displacing humans, and extracting the value for themselves.

Just like in past history.

Yes, it sucks, for software engineers, those in the past, and those in the future. As long as you and others fall for the straw man perhaps you and others will get more and more tricked and hurt, misplacing your aggression and hatred on each other rather than those receiving most of the extracted value.

	▲	SoftTalker 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> extracting the value for themselves Yes in some cases, but the reduced costs also allow lower prices which benefits all consumers of whatever product is being produced. At least for those products where there is a competitive market.

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hgs3 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What an asinine comment. Do you think I, as a software engineer, am sitting around twirling my mustache, cackling as I plot to destroy livelihoods? I'm trying to make a living like anybody else. I've had my own opportunities lost to outsourcing and H-1B's since day 1.

The economist John Keynes predicted almost 100 years ago that technological advances would lead to a 15 hour workweek. If AI now makes you 5x as productive, then why aren't you working 1 day a week for the same pay? Why didn't Keynes' vision come true.

	▲	zajio1am 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It is not for the same pay. Real wage increased dramatically during that time period. And despite all obsoleted jobs, society is still more or less at full employment.
	▲	11101010010001 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		A living like anybody else or a living at the expense of everybody else?
	▲	ksd482 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Before calling that comment asinine, did you consider that the commenter might be reflecting @flowerlad's comment back to him/her to prove a point ?
	▲	slopinthebag 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Why didn't Keynes' vision come true. governments implemented (and still implement) keynesian economics, and it has turned out to be a very bad idea and he was very very wrong.