[augusteo]

The tractor analogy keeps coming up in these threads, and I think it's actually more pessimistic than people realize.

Tractors didn't just change farming. They emptied entire regions.

What saved the people (not the communities) was that other industries absorbed them. Factory work, services, construction. The question for software isn't whether AI creates efficiency. It's whether there's somewhere else for displaced engineers to go.

I've been writing code professionally for 16 years. The honest answer is I don't know. The optimistic scenario is that AI makes software so cheap that we build things we never would have attempted. The pessimistic one is that most of what needed building gets built, and the remaining work fits in fewer hands.

Both seem plausible. I'd bet on somewhere in between, but I'm not confident enough to tell anyone starting out that they should ignore the risk entirely.

[elevatortrim]

What I do not understand is why is it that software engineers are so afraid? I have heard from so many other white collar people that AI already changed their job entirely (technical salesmen, translators, designers, government researchers, the list goes on), yet it is the software engineers that I hear the most noise from.

Software engineering is one of the most intellectually demanding categories of white collar work. I’m not saying it is invincible, but I do not see why SWEs should worry more.

[Espressosaurus]

Sampling bias.

You're on a site dominated by software engineers, in the field of software engineering, and likely have a lot of software engineer friends.

Translators got fucked, there's very little market for them compared now compared to decades past. Find their forums and I bet you'd have seen similar worry.

[vunderba]

Agreed. The job market for ad-copy, proofreading, etc. also got collectively set on fire - particularly in the gig economy.

[goostavos]

A lot of pride is wrapped up in the craft of writing software. If that goes away (I don't think it will) it would leave a lot of people wondering how they spent all their time.

(or something like that. Obviously I'm too well adjusted to have these existential worries)

[qbxk]

it's because software fundamentally has specific, measurable outcomes. it has to, that's why we build things: to do things. and in computing, necessarily, the things you do can be computed, which means they can be checked for correctness and reproducibility

much of an SWE's role is to artfully construct complex abstractions of reality in such a way that it can be understood by others, with the intent that it can be fixed or improved on in the future.

but if you don't _need_ artful construction in the first place, because you can just brute force AI slopped assembly language that's impossible (for MeatI) to comprehend, and the same AI is sufficient at improving and fixing it, then why do you need an SWE to bring artfulness to the table for you?

we're a long way off from this, ultimately, but imho, this is the broad strokes of it

[FirstClassTree]

How is software verifiable whatsoever for correctness? Ironically hardware is

I mean pure functions maybe verifiable for correctness, but I don't know how you verify facebooks codebase is 'correct'

Maybe try to run a maximizing function on the stock value, very unfeisable ofcourse

[tjr]

I also hear the most from software engineers, but then again, I don't really follow translation or government research discussion forums.

[citizenpaul]

>government research discussion

Its bad. The most depressing part is that it is because of de-funding not AI. While at the same time this field is probably one of the only venues for escaping the AI sinkhole but its being dismantled rather than built up. Source my partner in research.

[francisofascii]

Software engineers see the most dramatic change, and they haven't had to worry about job security for the last 25 years.

[SoftTalker]

Tractors replaced farm hands, not farmers. Software developers are farm hands.

[pixl97]

Why not both.

An absolutely massive numbers of farmers were replaced too. Farm management was rather grueling in the early 1900s. Farmers that embraced mechanization were able to buy up surrounding farms that didn't and grew in size. As the equipment got better the amount of work per acre farmed dropped so farms expanded with more acreage. Farmers and hands dropped in number.

[OptionOfT]

I thought like you 5 months ago.

I've come to the conclusion that we won't be replaced, because a majority of our work is to split up business questions, probe, ask around for other people's knowledge, assemble, build a plan etc.

AI only knows what it knows, it doesn't go after the unknowns. It is reactionary in its nature.

Now, let's say something happens and I'm wrong: let's think about that. The AI can do stuff like that. I think when that happens the economy as we know it collapses, and we've got bigger fish to fry. I would say, if this happens, nearly all white-collar jobs are disappearing.

[plantwallshoe]

This is also been my cope.

By the time software engineers are fully automated, then executive assistants, accountants, business development people, marketers, administrative staff, researchers, and HR will also have been fully automated. At that point we have a revolution on our hands and not having a coding job will be the least of your worries.

(or it happens slowly enough that we have time to adjust)

[gdotdesign]

> The pessimistic one is that most of what needed building gets built, and the remaining work fits in fewer hands.

I don't think that's true, mainly because if it were true it would have happened a long time ago. We will never settle on one version of a thing (let it be messaging, recipes, notes, image galleries, etc...). New variants emerge over time, the only thing AI does is accelerate this.

[pixl97]

There are countless games and applications in the app stores these days. Almost all of them are money losing ventures. The vast majority of these variants are going to go extinct and earn negative revenue for its creator. The big problem comes in when creators stop running into any variants that can earn them a living at all.

>We will never settle on one version of a thing

This depends on how well a monopoly can fit into the equation.

>We will never settle on one version of a thing (recipes)

Here is an example of missing the whole elephant because you're looking to close. While the number of recipes are booming, the number of food distribution companies has collapsed into just a few mega corporations. And those corps are massively controlling the prices all of us must pay.

[fragmede]

You can't make money playing a guitar and warbling into a microphone anymore either. Hasn't stopped my local bar from hosting local musicians who are in it for the craft.

[CodingJeebus]

I don't think that's really an apt comparison. Most software people who are in it purely for the craft are deep in open source, and open source doesn't necessarily build the most user-friendly tooling. If it did, you'd see apps like GIMP seriously challenging Adobe, etc. So much of the software layer built for enterprise and consumers relied on VC. I can only speak for myself, but I'd be willing to bet that 95+% of developers I've worked with would not build user-facing software for free. We are all in it for the money.

[fragmede]

I'm willing to be that 95% of developers you've worked with are, but how representative that is of the broader group is indeterminate. Apple is full of developers who give a shit about design, or at least, had to pass an interview that pretends that they pretend to give a predend shit... look, at some level you just have to buy that people are who they say they are. Even if you're in it for the money, you're going to conferences and speaking about it to people, so it's you.

[fangorn]

Let's hope you're right, but you might be underestimating the "$200 per month (robo)engineer can only do it like this, therefore this is the way to do it" factor.

[cyanydeez]

The tractor analogy continues to work. Take a look at right to repair.

I think the main "concern" is that Senior devs, code, essentially the entire current working body of programmers is going to bootstrap AI, and once they're gone, they'll be no one to replace them. And at that point, there's no fall back system.

[citizenpaul]

>build things we never would have attempted

I think there is something here but not much. The majority of business are carrying some SAS products that are an entire marching band when all they want are a drummer and guitar player. Making bespoke efficient tools will surge for sure.

The problem is that the building of these tools is all the same end. Increasing industry control to few players and further widening wealth inequality. Which leads us back to where does everyone go to work at that point?

We are at some sort of societal inflection point where we need new industries but only 20% of degrees are in some sort of science. 80% of degrees are in what is becoming nothing more than resume checkboxing for jobs that no longer will exist. Who is going to make the next big industry breakthough with 20% of degrees in business management? I don't see any push to get people in college for actual meaningful progress.

It seems it did happen, humans have hit post scarcity in survival terms(unevenly distributed). However we have in no way planned for what happens here, fairness has never been a priority. The cuthroat capitalism that made this possible is now eating itself with no plans to change.