[throwaway63467]

It’s been like that for a while, economic gains went to a small fraction of people, before software developers were among those that were on the winning side, now they’re on the losing side. Think about how much the US economy is growing right now and who really profits from that growth. My guess is that 90 % of the growth goes to 10 % of people, with AI maybe 99 % might go to the 1 %. Or who do you think will gain from the tokenization of development? You’re just supposed to be more productive and the gains the company achieves will just go to the owners as they are in a great position right now and developers are scared shitless to get fired, so no one is increasing salaries or time off, instead most companies hang the threat of layoffs over people’s head to keep them in line. And the funny thing is we developers did this to ourselves, by doing free open source work for the greater good, which now feeds AI models that are replacing many of us. But I guess most people didn’t care as they made good money while it lasted.

[Tade0]

> And the funny thing is we developers did this to ourselves, by doing free open source work for the greater good, which now feeds AI models that are replacing many of us.

Open source is not to blame here. AI companies used the code, in some cases against the license, to train their models.

Nobody is actually getting replaced - it's just that layoffs are in vogue now. If there was productivity to gain here, it would be used to do more and capture more of the market.

[therealpygon]

“Nobody is actually getting replaced” is an interesting take given currently available information on force reductions, stated cause, and AI implementation increases across sectors replacing workloads and causing fewer employees to accomplish the same goals, regardless of any opinions on whether that is positive, negative, problematic, or anything else to the future since the impact is now.

Could you point to some factual basis for that claim, or is this a feeling disguised as an opinion disguised as a factual statement?

[suttontom]

https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/technology/ai-layoffs...

https://cmr.berkeley.edu/2025/10/seven-myths-about-ai-and-pr...

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/05/26/1137855/a-realit...

You?

[therealpygon]

Cool opinion pieces that build stories from cherry-picked data.

My sources? Easy.

Just try searching for news stories of companies directly stating AI is the reason for layoffs. I don’t need to do any statistical or mental gymnastics for my evidence of it happening when it is literally as easy as looking at the result and the stated causes.

[suttontom]

What is your problem? Do you think something is an opinion piece just because it has a byline? What about https://www.forrester.com/press-newsroom/forrester-impact-ai...? Is there literally any evidence you'd accept?

You know companies lie and overstate things, right?

[therealpygon]

Your first article seems to start with a premise that laying off workers, whose jobs magically no longer need doing, and hiring AI focused workers means AI didn’t replace anyone. Your second article really doesn’t seem to address the subject beyond mostly talking about “overhyped” versions of conversations. The third article uses the fact that people who are exposed to AI aren’t entirely unemployed (despite rising unemployment across sectors and decreasing pay) and as such is proof a job apocalypse is unlikely. You follow up with yet another article in a similar vein.

Are you missing the pattern here?

Which of these articles and which part specifically do you believe supports the statement “NO ONE” is losing their job due to AI? Zero. Not a single one?

Okay, if not that, are you trying to refute my statement that automation is increasing across sectors? Which one of your articles refutes this statement categorically? Is it that you’re refuting AI is used in or to implement automations? Are you refuting that people have lost jobs to automations? Are you refuting that an AI does not need to replace an ENTIRE job in order to cause someone to lose their job or for a job to be replaced with a lesser paying job?

I’m not clear on how you think what you have provided is actually contextually relevant to the words I actually wrote, much less how I must have a “problem” because of it.

[bdangubic]

if you believe what companies are telling you (publicly traded companies especially which have to say this), I got some Enron stock options to sell to you :)

[jfil]

Well, none of the AI-generated code now seeping into those companies' codebase is copyrightable. So we're about to see a lot more free-use code hit the scene, when the chickens come home to roost. (Not the same as open source, but still a shakeup of the current status)

[pjmlp]

They certainly are, CMS deployment projects are no longer relying on humans for translation and asset creation, at least not in the same amount.

[jgilias]

We’re going to be fine. I see daily what non-engineers that build stuff with AI come up with.

[Peaches4Rent]

Not the point.

If you don't get paid more for being more productive, someone else is getting richer. That means they buy the houses in your neighborhood, which means you can't buy it because they outbid you

[yifanl]

You need to realize that people generally don't care about the quality of software. Crowdstrike shut down every airport in the world and is still in business today.

[abletonlive]

> before software developers were among those that were on the winning side, now they’re on the losing side.

are you sure about that? i'm a software engineer and i feel like i'm on the wining side now, even more than before. I'm considering quitting my 500K a year job to go compete against the employers. they seem like dinosaurs to me.

[forcedtolinux]

you personally are winning, but 500k comp is an outlier and not the norm, especially now

[abletonlive]

You don't understand what I'm saying. I'm saying the 500K comp is not worth it and i want to quit to go compete against all the employers that are offering such comp. I am positioning myself to do it this year.

Software engineers have more leverage than ever.

[Gooblebrai]

Software engineers with a network and sales skills

[goatlover]

Even if so, should you want that to be how society is organized going forward? Because I think the evidence is societies are worse off when there is too much economic disparity, even if you personally benefit. And the greater the disparity, the more likely for there to be serious unrest in the future.

[throwaway63467]

Well congrats man you might belong to the 1 % then