[willio58]

Most coding jobs will not be gone in 5 years. Remember when "automation" was going to take all the trucker's jobs in 5 years? That was about 5 years ago and I'm not seeing many automated trucks on the roads. Of course code is different and some things are being automated, Copilot and similar projects are amazing and the next iterations will likely be mind-blowing. That being said, there's a looooong tail in programming where ML-aided code just won't be the final solution for a long time. (I'm guessing more like 20-30 years from now)

I also think there will be a long time where a programmer's job turns instead into writing extremely detailed comment-like code where you define nearly every requirement of the code (down to the "this button should be padded 5px from the top right and hover states should function as such..").

Until we reach the day where a designer could feed a design into an ML alg and out pops the backend, frontend, and infra to do the job and scale perfectly without bugs.. devs will be needed.

This will follow Gates' law, which says we overestimate the impact of technology in the short-term and underestimate the effect in the long run.

[alach11]

Yep. We're going to see an explosion of development due to Jevons Paradox. As writing custom code becomes cheaper, more and more niches will open up for custom development work. Every small business will be able to afford to hire someone to make a custom application to suit their exact needs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

[readonthegoapp]

more of a Jevons question, but do you also agree that the increasing use of 'renewable' energy like solar/wind will bring about an explosion in total energy demand/use?

Then an increase in fossil fuel use due to decreasing cost?

[alach11]

Interesting question. I think reducing electricity cost (with technology improvements in solar/wind) will definitely increase total energy demand. But that will translate only in a limited capacity to decreased fossil fuel cost. Fossil fuel costs have a ceiling based on how much it costs to get them out of the ground. Prices won't be able to fall (in the long-term) below the marginal cost of production.

[Madmallard]

Yeah this is way different than "automation". I see the majority of simplified positions being consolidated as a result of this technology.