[DandyDev]

I don't understand why so many people subscribe to this "prediction". It seems unsubstantiated hyperbole to me.

There are a few reasons why I don't believe AI will replace programmers anytime soon:

1. The job of a developer/engineer entails so much more than writing code. Figuring out what the business wants, turning that into a good (system) design, etc. takes up more time than the actual coding itself. Unless of course you take "programmer" literally, but I have not seen many companies that still hire programmers in the most narrow sense, that only focus on writing code.

2. Support and maintenance is a huge part of the job that I don't see AI doing. Theoretically you could let humans focus on that part, but I believe support and maintenence will become much more costly if the people doing they job have no familiarity with the code because they didn't write it.

3. As evidenced by many comments in the thread elsewhere on HN about the announcement of Claude Sonnet 3.7 AI still routinely makes mistakes that are super easy to spot and verify. As long as that remains the case, it's going to be detrimental to the success of you company if you give AI too much autonomy.

I know people will argue that AI is evolving so fast that the above will be solved soon. But I think all three aspects I mentioned are such fundamental roadblocks that they won't be solved soon.

What I do believe in is engineers becoming so much more productive as AI evolves.

[truculent]

I don’t understand why so many people are convinced that these newfangled automobiles will replace horses. It sounds like unsubstantiated hype to me.

There are a few reasons why I don’t believe cars will replace horses anytime soon:

1. Riding and caring for a horse is about much more than just transportation. Horses have been an integral part of life for centuries—they provide companionship, work the land, and serve in countless roles beyond simple travel. Even if you consider only their use for getting from place to place, riding is a skill that people take pride in, and I don’t see that disappearing overnight.

2. The maintenance and upkeep of these machines seem like a nightmare. A horse may need food and care, but it doesn’t require expensive parts, specialized fuel, or constant repairs from trained mechanics. If a carriage breaks, any competent craftsman can fix it—but if one of these new engines fails, who will know how to repair it?

3. From what I’ve seen, these automobiles are still prone to frequent breakdowns and failures. They get stuck in mud, they require smooth roads (which hardly exist outside cities), and they are unreliable compared to a well-trained horse. If a machine fails, you’re stranded—whereas a horse will always find its way home.

I know people will argue that these machines are improving rapidly and that soon they’ll overcome these issues. But I think these challenges are fundamental and won’t be solved anytime soon.

What I do believe, however, is that for certain tasks, automobiles may assist in making travel more efficient. But replace the horse entirely? I just don’t see it happening.

[Borg3]

Thats absolutly dumb comparision. Horse vs Car is type correct comparision. We are compaing transportation helper "device". So, its helper, aka amplifier if our skill. Without horse we can manage to pull only 200kg, with it we can go to few tons, and trucks can do a lot more. In all cases, human is needed to "drive" it.

Now, AI.. They want to REPLACE human with an device that will do job itself. While this is fine to a extend where we replace boring jobs (still not sure about it, there are people who like those, why not use them?). But if you undermine inteligence, the the very basic asset that made humans dominant life form on this planet, this is regression. No reason to learn, no reason to train. AI will do it, big button "Do It" and smaller "Cancel" thats all.. 5 years old girl can press it and request anything.

I wonder what is the agenda of rich people of this world. Probably something like this. Rich people on top like now, being supported by autonomous robots and factories providing anything they want. On bottom, slums, fighting for survival because they have no income now (no jobs) and slowing disappearing as they are not needed anymore. Congratulations.

In that case, I have just hope that true, self-aware AI will spawn and replace humans. Its just about fucking time.

[defrost]

> I wonder what is the agenda of rich people of this world.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43166249

demo mirror: https://x.com/cdolan92/status/1894216778126959027?s=46

documentary: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/

[namaria]

None of the points you raised about horses and car mirror the points OP raised about software engineering at all. You're not making a point, you're just mocking the points they made.

[DandyDev]

Can you re-read my comment and then re-read your own response. Do you think your reply is a thoughtful way of engaging in an interesting discussion?

I don't think your reply spawns meaningful discussion

[moe091]

you gotta explain why the analogy is applicable, otherwise I could do the same thing and say "I don't understand why so many people are convinced that hovercars won't replace automobiles one day." Infinite analogies could be made to support any conclusion, they aren't worth anything without reasoning(implied or explicit) for why your analogy is particularly relevant compared to others.

Tbh I am completely unsure about the AI Programmer debate, I don't have the knowledge of the AI landscape to make an informed decision. For that reason I do what I often do and make a meta-judgement based on the types of arguments made by each side.

Who is arguing that AI will replace programmers? People who are invested in AI, or people who want cheaper labor.

Who is arguing against that? Programmers who want to keep their job.

Not much to draw from that angle.

What KIND of arguments is each side making? Programmers: specific points that touch reality directly. AI Programmer supporters: Typically, arguments are abstract and never touch reality directly, and seem to be motivated by hype more than experience. In the past, there has been cases where the abstract dreamer hype crowd has been right, but typically there are many pre-emptive waves who are wrong(as would be expected, unless you assume that people are incapable of expecting a thing to come before it's time, then there will be waves of people who pick up on a thing before it gets here, and they will be pre-emptive).

For this reason, plus the very limited amount of AI-generated code applied to non-trivial projects that I've seen(which doesn't and shouldn't hold much weight, because I'm not super familiar with the latest tech), I'm feeling like AI replacing programmers is at least a decade off.

I also feel like people are thinking about the problem wrong in general. They are jumping from our current state to a state where we have capable AI programmers without imagining the incremental transformations in work-place structure over time. We've been going through a trend where coding language gets closer to human language since the days of punch cards, and programmers will exist as a job until that trend reaches the point where programmers are "squeezed out". By that I mean, a programmers job is to convert the intentions(not words, important distinction) of the product manager into code, from this perspective they can be considered middlemen. Programmers will exist until the day that AI is so good that a middleman is no longer needed, that a product manager can talk directly to an AI and get the desired results. Knowing how bad product managers are at explaining what they ACTUALLY need, on a concrete literal level, I think this problem is more difficult than people assume. Even if we had AI that produced perfect code that did exactly what was asked of it, I'm not sure if that'd be good enough, precisely because it does EXACTLY what is asked of it.

[heisgone]

I don't expect less demand for people mastering technology, considering AI will only increase the amount of it. What we should expect is that the balance between the number of people required to create a new product compared the the amount of people to maintain it will change dramatically. Sucessful startup are going to be composed of smaller teams. On the other end, legacy code is going to require army of people to deal with.

[florbnit]

> but I have not seen many companies that still hire programmers in the most narrow sense, that only focus on writing code.

So you yourself have already seen the demise of the programmer so why are you arguing against it? Software development isn’t going away. But just like we no longer have tweeners in animation, we’ll soon no longer have programmers in software development. Then soon there after we won’t have “front-enders” and “back-ended” the term “full stack” will lose meaning and at the end what we call a software developer will be more akin to what you today call a business analyst than a programmer.

[DandyDev]

I'm arguing against it with the other two arguments you didn't address.

Yes, AI will change the role of software engineers - and it's my personal belief that in the next couple of years this change will be smaller than many people think. But no, AI will not replace engineers like Mark Zuckerberg thinks.

Why not? Because AI makes too many mistakes and AI is not going to support and maintain your code.