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Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#11

Post by retrocryptid »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #6
DeepSeaTortoise wrote: post #5

No, there was already an "AI-like", but much more superior solution available for decades at this point: Outsourcing the work to a country with low wages. Even nowadays you can get highly skilled workers for like $50 a month in some African countries. Pay them $500 a month instead and you've got yourself highly motivated employees, who are extremely eager to learn whatever skills you require. In the very long run rob…

>Even nowadays you can get highly skilled workers for like $50 a month in some African countries. No way. The market is getting normalised and even Indian devs make good salary nowadays. Now there's basically rest of world and US market salaries.

It turns out that Africa and India are on different continents and do not refer to the same place.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#12

Post by coolThingsFirst »

retrocryptid wrote: post #11
coolThingsFirst wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even nowadays you can get highly skilled workers for like $50 a month in some African countries. No way. The market is getting normalised and even Indian devs make good salary nowadays. Now there's basically rest of world and US market salaries.

It turns out that Africa and India are on different continents and do not refer to the same place.

It doesn't matter, you can't get a software engineer for 50$ in Africa.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#13

Post by DeepSeaTortoise »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #6
DeepSeaTortoise wrote: post #5

No, there was already an "AI-like", but much more superior solution available for decades at this point: Outsourcing the work to a country with low wages. Even nowadays you can get highly skilled workers for like $50 a month in some African countries. Pay them $500 a month instead and you've got yourself highly motivated employees, who are extremely eager to learn whatever skills you require. In the very long run rob…

>Even nowadays you can get highly skilled workers for like $50 a month in some African countries. No way. The market is getting normalised and even Indian devs make good salary nowadays. Now there's basically rest of world and US market salaries.

Check out e.g. Madagascar. I admit, the salaries are higher now than I remember (or maybe that's just because salaries in the capital are higher), but they're still low enough that you'd end up on a pillory if people were to look into one's business adventures there.

And Madagascar is far from the worst country to be stuck in, since the gunmen to "worker" ratio is rather low compared to other African countries. $50 in Somalia would probably get you a whole, very motivated team and a lengthy prison sentence.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#14

Post by mejutoco »

ps256 wrote: post #7

Yes. Developers who know how to use LLMs are some % faster and more productive. You can increase the % enough so that overall demand for developers goes down or doesn't grow as much as it would have otherwise. It's not "my company laid us all off and replaced us with an LLM" but more like "this year our team is hiring for 3 new people instead of 4" - that's still a significant impact on the job market. And who knows…

That would be true if demand for development in general would remain static. My opinion is that software demand has a lot of room to grow.

If cars become cheaper, car infrastructure gets better people will use more cars, not the same amount. Except I believe there is a lower limit in the amount of cars a person can use vs the amount of automation (through software) a person can use.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#15

Post by austin-cheney »

In theory AI should be eliminating low skill developer jobs because it can already fully replace those people. By low skill I mean pattern memorizing framework monkeys who fear writing original solutions because doing so is beyond their capabilities.

In practice however the only people being eliminated are more experienced senior developers, because they cost more and their added value is often either not realized or not wanted. This is especially true in web development which has been racing towards commodity copy/paste skills for over a decade. In my case, as well as other cases I have observed, senior developers will continue to do this work for as long as they can until terminated at which point they don’t come back.

This is hastening the problem that was already present. Nobody is training web development as a competency which makes employers more reliant upon tools as a solution, which in turn drives increased complexity to compensate for declining availability of talent. It will be interesting to see what happens when employers stop over paying for candidates sufficiently lacking expected talent and instead turn to AI, which can already perform that low skill work.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#16

Post by danwee »

DeepSeaTortoise wrote: post #5

No, there was already an "AI-like", but much more superior solution available for decades at this point: Outsourcing the work to a country with low wages. Even nowadays you can get highly skilled workers for like $50 a month in some African countries. Pay them $500 a month instead and you've got yourself highly motivated employees, who are extremely eager to learn whatever skills you require. In the very long run rob…

> Outsourcing the work to a country with low wages. Even nowadays you can get highly skilled workers for like $50 a month in some African countries.

But this is not the norm. In order for company X to hire people from a different country, it is necessary that:

- company X hires contractors/freelancers. The vast majority of people out there in IT work as employees, not as contractors

- company X needs a branch in that country. This is rare

- company X hires in that country via an intermediary company. Not as rare, but usually it's not worth it

Not even in Europe countries hire people from other countries that easily. It's more common now after covid, yes, but it's definitely not "let's hire from country X developers 50% cheaper!"

Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#17

Post by danwee »

ps256 wrote: post #7

Yes. Developers who know how to use LLMs are some % faster and more productive. You can increase the % enough so that overall demand for developers goes down or doesn't grow as much as it would have otherwise. It's not "my company laid us all off and replaced us with an LLM" but more like "this year our team is hiring for 3 new people instead of 4" - that's still a significant impact on the job market. And who knows…

> his year our team is hiring for 3 new people instead of 4

Na. We'll be able to do more with less... but the amount of work to be needed will increase, hence more people will be needed as well. Same old story. Compilers didn't get massive people fired.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#18

Post by ps256 »

danwee wrote: post #17
ps256 wrote: post #7

Yes. Developers who know how to use LLMs are some % faster and more productive. You can increase the % enough so that overall demand for developers goes down or doesn't grow as much as it would have otherwise. It's not "my company laid us all off and replaced us with an LLM" but more like "this year our team is hiring for 3 new people instead of 4" - that's still a significant impact on the job market. And who knows…

> his year our team is hiring for 3 new people instead of 4 Na. We'll be able to do more with less... but the amount of work to be needed will increase, hence more people will be needed as well. Same old story. Compilers didn't get massive people fired.

I don't think anyone can claim certainty on this either way.

My view is that in the past the increases in productivity have come in a period of exponential growth of the software industry and that growth can absorb the additional productivity. But exponential growth doesn't last forever and if you have a period of a declining / flat / slowly growing software field, a significant enough productivity improvement from tools like LLMs can reduce the overall demand for software development.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think AI is threat to developers job?

#19

Post by coolThingsFirst »

DeepSeaTortoise wrote: post #13
coolThingsFirst wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even nowadays you can get highly skilled workers for like $50 a month in some African countries. No way. The market is getting normalised and even Indian devs make good salary nowadays. Now there's basically rest of world and US market salaries.

Check out e.g. Madagascar. I admit, the salaries are higher now than I remember (or maybe that's just because salaries in the capital are higher), but they're still low enough that you'd end up on a pillory if people were to look into one's business adventures there. And Madagascar is far from the worst country to be stuck in, since the gunmen to "worker" ratio is rather low compared to other African countries. $50 i…

Even if the software salaries are 250$ per month for devs which is what I read online, I seriously doubt you can find a highly skilled engineer for that price. A highly skilled engineer would only struggle to get the first client on Upwork and earn a lot more or just leave the country.

By highly skilled I mean:

1) Fluent in English

2) Good education - you can't get a great education in isolation it's either from other smart people through online contact or the more likely, face to face(university).

3) Open source projects, ability to pass interview

Even devs would hire a highly skilled dev for 50$.

The whole idea just reeks of americans who haven't left their country.

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