[an0malous]

There’s one force where software engineering is being automated by LLMs, but the other force is that there isn’t really much more software that needs to be built. Even before AI coding became big, back in 2021, we were already in late stage SaaS territory where each new idea was an increasingly minor variation of an existing idea. There were no new GitHubs, Herokus, Stripes, Salesforces, Instagrams, Reddits, just variations of those for more specialized markets.

It’s really unfortunate that AI hasn’t raised the ceiling on the space of possibilities as much as it’s raised the floor on how much can be automated, we’re all getting squeezed in the space between.

[9rx]

> there isn’t really much more software that needs to be built

Yup. Most everything we need was already built in the 1970s. Programmers have been kept busy because we've kept introducing incompatibilities into the mix, like DOS programs needing to be rewritten for Windows, and then the web, and then mobile.

And now they're being rewritten for AI platforms. It may be giving the squeeze due to being the first platform that will also help with the rewrite effort, but it is also the thing that kept the industry going. As you point out, there wasn't any work left to do until AI showed up.

[gitaarik]

I don't know, I can think of lots of new ideas that haven't been executed yet. I think there's always more to explore. It's also a bit of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking

[mike_hearn]

Can't disagree more! There's bottomless demand for more software. Here's a few examples I encountered just in the last few weeks that wouldn't be feasible before LLMs:

- More localism. Are you afraid of being cut off from tech by some future US government? Now it's feasible for your local culture to grow its own office suite, operating systems, Active Directory competitor etc. A less interdependent world with more competition does have its advantages.

- The building management company for my apartment sucks. Basic problems go unfixed because they appear to suffer extreme labour shortages and serious problems with flaky labour e.g. employees that just randomly go AWOL in the middle of conversations without bothering to tell anyone. A lot of the work of these employees is actually just coordinating and paying contractors in response to problem reports, something that can now be automated by AI ... but they haven't done it yet.

- I just finished assembling some flatpack furniture. Every time I do this it reminds me why IKEA dominates the market. Other furniture companies give the strong impression they don't usability test their instruction leaflets. This should and could be massively better: AR assistance during the build would be great, AI stress-testing instructions to verify they make sense would be great, AI checking every packet has the right number of components in it would be great. And there are lots of furniture companies out there. They don't all need to use a single SaaS to do this.

+ in general robots will require tons of software/models to make them do tasks usefully, especially as they lack training data.

That's just a few examples of places software could have made my life easier in just the last few weeks.

[rightbyte]

> Now it's feasible for your local culture to grow its own office suite, operating systems, Active Directory competitor etc. A less interdependent world with more competition does have its advantages.

That is allready solved by FOSS.