[Shrezzing]

At some point in the future, economics textbooks will teach about "the programmer ouroboros". A group of high-skilled people who existed between ~1960-2040, whose collaborative and open approach to information sharing was ultimately used to render their own profession defunct.

[falcor84]

You make that sound bad, but I would see it as a massive win. I don't want to spend my time solving small variations of problems that devs before me solved countless times. Call me overly optimistic, but I believe that if we can literally automate ourselves out of the whole profession, I it would leave us with the more interesting problems, even if they're just about "what to do with our time, now that all of our basic needs are taken care of by automation".

[Shrezzing]

> now that all of our basic needs are taken care of by automation

An AI being able to consistently outperform us in recalling the syntax for switch statements, is a world away from "all of our basic needs being taken care of by automation". The former is going to take a few more weeks/months, while the latter is going to take a few more decades/centuries.

In the interim, there will be some winners, and many losers from this innovation. Wealth will concentrate significantly towards the winners, while the losers will be out of work with a valueless skillset, and their basic needs going unmet. While this may be true for most high-skill professions in the coming decades, there's a unique irony for programmers - who will be the losers, having invented and then fueled the engine of their own demise on behalf of the winners.

It's not necessarily a value-judgement based comment. It's just noting the irony, and highlighting that it's a specific genre of irony that economists absolutely salivate over.

[naasking]

> An AI being able to consistently outperform us in recalling the syntax for switch statements, is a world away from "all of our basic needs being taken care of by automation". The former is going to take a few more weeks/months, while the latter is going to take a few more decades/centuries.

Well then that may just refute your claim that the profession would become defunct by 2040...

[pavel_lishin]

> Call me overly optimistic, but I believe that if we can literally automate ourselves out of the whole profession, I it would leave us with the more interesting problems, even if they're just about "what to do with our time, now that all of our basic needs are taken care of by automation".

Haven't we been promised this for literally a century? We don't even have a four-day workweek.

[nuancebydefault]

We have a five day workweek. In a few ways better than the previous 6 or 7.

[pavel_lishin]

But that didn't come about as a result of some technological change that made us 140% more efficient.

[djent]

You realize when you get automated out of your job, you need a new job? The "interesting problems" you'll be left with are hoping that you don't need to go to the ER after your health insurance ends

[keybored]

You’re posting on a site where many people think that for-profit employment will be replaced with UBI in the sense of a stipend which will free most people up to pursue their dreams and desires.[1] So 200+ years of for-profit employment and wealth extraction which created a very impressive wealth disparity until One Weird/Genius Policy proposal by Andre Yang/Musk will usher in the post-scarcity era.

[1] As opposed to something that will keep you alive but perhaps not give you any means of expressing or pursuing your interests. If UBI even becomes a thing.

[bluefirebrand]

> You’re posting on a site where many people think that for-profit employment will be replaced with UBI in the sense of a stipend which will free most people up to pursue their dreams and desires

Sure, but until you actually see evidence that this will become a reality instead of a pipe dream, you should be planning accordingly, right?

Even the most UBI optimistic people should expect there to be a very painful period of time where things are being automated and people are unemployed en masse which could last a long time before any kind of UBI is enacted

[jart]

There's already UBI. It's called fake jobs. Programming has already mostly automated itself out of existence for a long time. Very few developers ever get the opportunity to write data structures and algorithms, because most of what they do is just slapping together glue code for existing libraries at cushy sinecures at places like Google, where PhDs are paid to write HTML and play air hockey. If the machine can write the HTML and glue too, then there won't be much left over about the job aside from the ideology and politics. People will be given positions not for their skill but for their loyalty to land owners. The only solution I feel is to use technology to make sure our brains continue to be smarter than the latest $300 graphics card.

[keybored]

I was not exactly writing approvingly of that particular delusion.

[djent]

Step 1. AI Step 2. ??? Step 3. UBI

[DaiPlusPlus]

> you'll be left with are hoping that you don't need to go to the ER after your health insurance ends

This is a US-only problem. The majority of software professionals in the world do not reside in the US.

[azangru]

They will be solving other interesting problems caused by unemployment.

[rcshubhadeep]

How come is it a US only problem? Well, the way the problem is stated is US only, but everyone will need a new job to bring bread on their plate or pay other bills? Whether they live in the US or not. Is it not true?

[DaiPlusPlus]

You're not wrong - but healthcare is the concern here because it represents the risk of sudden, unexpected, and massive costs at the worst possible time. Whereas having to eat and pay rent/mortgage is a known and predictable cost we can plan and prepare for.

[ghaff]

As is private health insurance.

[keybored]

As you know that is only one of the potential problems caused by unemployment. Pointing out a concrete, potential life-or-death problem gives more punch than just saying abstractly that there will be problems.

So the boring version: you will be left with the problem of a sudden loss of money as (concurrently) labor power vanes because LLMs don’t go on strike and you have no one to complain to since no one with any power has to care (see: LLMs don’t strike) that unemployed person #5468 today couldn’t pay their mortgage again and/or started on an opioid death-of-despair campaign.

[bigstrat2003]

You're getting hung up on an irrelevant detail and missing the point. The point is that one will still have bills to pay even after they don't have a job. That is not a US-only problem, that is a human existence problem.

[debesyla]

Programmer's job isn't writing code - it's solving customer problems. And it's unlikely that customers will stop having (and creating new) problems.

"No job" is only a problem for someone who refuses to learn and move on. It's similar to having a child - first you have a job as a technician, then teacher, then mentor and lastly you are out of job until your customer makes you grandkids to care for, or something. ;-)

[rchaud]

Put a programmer out on the street, and they'll be on LinkedIn in 5 minutes with a big "For Hire" sign on their profile, like 99% of other people.

The idea that programmers serve some higher purpose in society ("solving customer problems") that frees them from the whims of corporate restructuring or bad management is laughable. Pray tell, how many programmers employed by Google or Netflix are solving actual problems? As opposed to helping build a bigger competitive moat?

[debesyla]

Customer in this situation is the corporation - it's not much different; someone pays for some result. And there's enough reasons to hire programmers even when they don't write any code (look at the amount of people FANG hire - programmers who actually write code are minority).

[falcor84]

> you need a new job

Jobs as we know them have only been around for 500 or so years. There have been other ways of living beforehand and I expect we'll be about to figure another way in the near future. The only real argument I see for keeping jobs around even when human labor isn't needed anymore is the protestant moralistic one, and I don't buy that one.

[et-al]

> There have been other ways of living beforehand and I expect we'll be about to figure another way in the near future.

Or we revert back to serfdom and slavery.

[keybored]

The abstract occupations of most people for all the thousands years of advanced society (marked by the ability to accumulate and hoard food or other kinds of wealth) have been marked by subjugation in service to some elite classes. Naturally some people are a bit concerned about their future and are not content to just stumble/bumble into the future and see what kinds of “ways of living” the powers that be have in store for them.

[djent]

Yep subsistence farming in my living room is a good idea too. Do you think I could raise a cow in my bedroom if I swap out my queen bed for a twin?

[jtriangle]

Automation doesn't replace human work, it just amplifies how much work can be done.

There is -plenty- of work out there that's currently not worth taking that will be suddenly worth it if you can code 100x faster than you can now. It might be for jimbob's landscaping company instead of google, but that hardly matters outside of your ego.

[CogitoCogito]

I think the real problem is that in the US health insurance is tied to employment.

[soco]

So the US folks will have a real problem rather sooner than later. Of course, we others as well, better start investing time in woodworking, mechanics, healthcare or agriculture...

[ghaff]

Subsidized health insurance is tied to employment with subsidies probably at about the 50% level on average.

[CogitoCogito]

I understand that. That’s exactly the problem.

[ghaff]

But health insurance is easier if you’re getting paid (as are many other things including eating and rent/mortgage) is different from the idea that healthcare is tied to a job post-ACA.

[kolinko]

What? Just because you don’t have work doesn’t mean you lose access to the public services.

But in all seriousness - the way I see it is that it’s a race to reaching post-scarcity utopia before we reach unemployment dystopia.

[shrimp_emoji]

You're overly optimistic.

[tezgon]

Is it not the ultimate goal of all human labor to progress past the need for certain menial jobs? It seems to just be the natural progression of technological advancement, not the rapture.

[keybored]

Nothing natural (as in inevitable) about it. The crossbow was put to widespread use because it was like a deskilled regular bow. Then muskets because they were even easier to train for.

[TacticalCoder]

> ... whose collaborative and open approach to information sharing was ultimately used to render their own profession defunct.

Before that happens, so many other professions shall then have been rendered totally obsolete. So many it'd have profound societal consequences. I understand the "me, myself and I" and the fear but programmers coding themselves into irrelevance is really the least of our concerns.