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

Have you noticed any change in your work productivity?

The majority of them said that they were able to reduce the time required for building. Imagine a project that used to take three days, is now wrapped up in just one and a half days! Thanks to AI, we're talking about a 50% reduction in completion time

Do you think AI is a threat to a developer's job?

It's not just about coding skills; it's about how smartly you wield those skills. Embracing AI isn't a threat to your job; it's a guarantee of job security.

What do you think? Share your thoughts and experiences below

For the simpler work, AI tools are as much of a threat as frameworks or existing code generators.

For higher level work, AI tools can be great assistants, but they are very far from being able to understanding large existing code bases, inter-dependencies, side-effects, non-functional requirements, etc.

Not to mention that most software development projects fail for non-technical reasons, which code-focused models also can't help with.

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 robots and "AI" will of course wipe out 99.9% of the available jobs, but at that point we'll have to think about other solutions on the political level anyways.

It is reasonable to assume any jobs done exclusively in front of computers are very early on the chopping block, but as long as you don't see the business majors or business jurists being sent out the door enmasse, I wouldn't worry too much.

And at that point you'll still have first class logical deduction and math skills and a lot of knowledge about algorithms, which are highly valuable skills in general.

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 how those numbers will change as LLMs get better.