[edzitron]

Hi! I'm afraid you've made an assumption that isn't true.

LLMs do not "bring the cost of writing software close to $0" on a number of levels.

1. The code is not 100% reliable, meaning it requires human oversight, and human beings cost money. 2. LLMs themselves are not cheap, nor profitable. I am comfortable humoring the idea that someone could run their own models - something which is beginning to happen - to write code. I think that's really cool, but I am also not sure how good said code will be or how practical doing so will be.

Right now, Microsoft is effectively subsidizing the cost of Github Copilot, though they appear to have produced quite a lot of revenue from it.

https://www.benzinga.com/news/24/07/40061358/satya-nadella-s...

However, it seems that Github was not profitable before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17224136) and I would argue isn't profitable now. It's hard to tell, because Microsoft blends their costs into other business lines.

[jumploops]

> Hi! I'm afraid you've made an assumption that isn't true.

Citation?

Your concerns are certainly valid, but the LLMs are getting smaller, faster, and cheaper to run every day. Now, I also agree that you still need someone "programming" -- in the sense that they're telling a computer what to do, but they no longer need to "code" in the traditional sense (curly braces and semicolons).

We're actively seeing non-engineers build useful software for themselves, just with a $20/month subscription to ChatGPT/Claude.

Times are changing, you no longer need a 6 figure engineer to build your one-off tool.

[edzitron]

LLMs are not making the cost of software near-zero, even by your admission!

If times are changing FOR GOOD, perhaps you're right? But i'm not sure they are.

[jumploops]

We’re saying the same thing, but from different angles.

LLMs won’t build Google from scratch, we’ll still need human software engineers.

LLMs will enable an entirely new class of ”programmer” to exist. Writing software still requires a technical mindset, but you no longer need a 4-year degree (or bootcamp) to build and deploy a personal web app.

The cost of writing software is approaching $0, as you will no longer need to hire a developer for your bespoke requirement — how valuable that software is depends entirely on the end user.

Programmers in the 70s thought C was silly; how could you trust an abstraction over actual assembly instructions?

We’re seeing the same shift here, but accelerated to a much larger group of potential “programmer” recruits.

Again, we’re seeing this pop up almost every day across Reddit[0], Discord, and various forums.

Non-developers are already writing software entirely with ChatGPT.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPTCoding/s/sZmeQV6yNu