| I think that software development has peaked. Not because of GenAI but because of saturation and lack of innovation. The primary value prop of tech has always been automation, and there has been very little new automation lately. Google and Facebook have already perfected the automation of surveillance and advertising. Streaming services have already solved the automation of content delivery. Cloud services are stagnating, and in some cases we see the pendulum swinging back with companies opting for on-prem hosting due to pricing. Most "innovation" now is just competing for market share and IP. GenAI is kind of the last and greatest promise of automation. But the thing is, either way it goes, it's the end of automation. Either it fulfills the promise and delivers full AGI, rendering all software devs obsolete. Or, its a dud, undermining the value proposition of automation. It would mean there's a ceiling to what can be automated, and we've hit it. Here's a thought experiment: it takes 100 engineers to build a bridge, but only 10 to maintain it. The bridge is now complete, what happens to the other 90 engineers? I think the future will look something like the history of automobile manufacturing. In the beginning, there were assembly lines where cars where assembled by hand. The jobs were numerous and lucrative for the time. However, as the tech evolved, humans were gradually removed from the loop. Now nearly all of car manufacturing is automated. The only human input is design and oversight performed by the exceptional few. |
It isn't binary. There is a LOT of territory between those two extremes.