The obvious thing is gpt-6 (or even gpt-5) will be able to do your job better and faster than you. This will happen in 1-2 years. That doesn’t scare you?
I am bearish on that prediction. I’m not convinced LLMs can scale that much more. Of course, I’d be happy to be wrong. In that case, I’ll leverage the tools to become more productive.
Knowing how to code doesn't make you a Software Engineer in the same way being able to read and write in English doesn't make you an author. If you truly believe the current and future iterations of GPT can code better than you, look to elevate your own skill.
If ever, a GPT-like LLM/AGI ever exists where it can distill business requirements, understand modular designs and intelligently establish complex relationships between different systems and contexts, then 99% of all jobs will perish.
This will be an unprecedented disruption at a macro scale that humanity has never seen before. All of our current economic models will be instantly trash. How likely do you think this will happen? If it does, there's no real incentive to have these systems produce anything because no one can afford to buy anything. A global revolution would be inevitable.
unprecedented disruption at a macro scale that humanity has never seen before
Exactly.
How likely do you think this will happen?
I estimate the chance of this happening after the release of GPT-5: 50%.
Chance of this happening after GPT-6 is released: 90%.
You painted a pretty bleak picture of what might happen. I tend to agree with your assessment, but there's a chance that the total automation of everything will make things so cheap that quality of life will actually improve for majority of humankind. In any case, we still have a few years to prepare for this disruption.
p.s. I'm not sure why people are talking about software engineering as some sort of a subtle skill that is hard to automate. It's quite likely that GPT-5 will be able to talk to my boss, colleagues, and any other other stakeholders to understand what needs to be done, access all relevant information, iterate on requirements, ask for help, and problem solve, and it will do so better than me, or anyone else in this thread. Even if GPT-5 is not quite there yet, it's almost guaranteed that GPT-6 will be (barring some unlikely global catastrophic events preventing further technological progress). At that point, there will be no reason for my boss to employ me, or for his boss to employ him, and so on.
let's bet 1000USD that in 2 years there will not be even 2 confirmed real cases where any algorithm is doing a full time job of senior+ software engineer?
In two years the job of a senior software engineer will be completely redefined, so I'm not sure how we could test your prediction. Would someone who tells an AI model to build something still be an engineer, or would we call that person a manager?
including current versions quality degradation, unprofitable business models (it's still too damn expensive to be covered by your average 19$/m subscription) etc.
We simply don't know what it will be. Growth in nature does not continue at the same pace forever, and eventually the speed of innovation will taper off.
It's a common phenomena, described with an S-curve: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function). We can't know if LLMs are already there, or not yet, we'll only know after the fact.
OK, so it is reasonable to assume that the chance the progress will continue in the next two years is about 50%, would you agree? If so, why are people in this thread dismiss my concerns as unreasonable?