Ask HN: How much of OpenAI code is written by AI?

> If AI is a threat to software engineering, I wouldn't expect many software engineers to actively accelerate that trend.

This is a naive take. Throughout history things have been automated with the help of professions who were being automated away.

Yeah, this needs to be considered down to the individual level. If your employer not only incentives you to go against your best interests but also threatens the stability of your role, then your choices are either do the job or accept that you might not be reliably employed. This is the culmination of decades of moving power from the employee to the employer.

I absolutely believe that a large proportion of new code written is at least in-part AI generated, but that doesn't mean a large proportion of new code is 100% soup-to-nuts/pull-request-to-merge the result of decisions made by an agent and not a human. I doubt that very much.

I think the difference between situations where AI-driven development works and doesn't is going to be largely down to the quality of the engineers who are supervising and prompting to generate that code, and the degree to which they manually evaluate it before moving it forward. I think you'll find that good engineers who understand what they're telling an agent to do are still extremely valuable, and are unlikely to go anywhere in the short to mid term. AI tools are not yet at the point where they are reliable on their own, even for systems they helped build, and it's unclear whether they will be any time soon purely through model scaling (though it's possible).

I think you can see the realities of AI tooling in the fact that the major AI companies are hiring lots and lots of engineers, not just for AI-related positions, but for all sorts of general engineering positions. For example, here's a post for a backend engineer at OpenAI: https://openai.com/careers/backend-software-engineer-leverag... - and one from Anthropic: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/anthropic/jobs/4561280008.

Note that neither of these require direct experience with using AI coding agents, just an interest in the topic! Contrast that with many companies who now demand engineers explain how they are using AI-driven workflows. When they are being serious about getting people to do the work that will make them money, rather than engaging in marketing hype, AI companies are honest: AI agents are tools, just like IDEs, version control systems, etc. It's up to the wise engineer to use them in a valuable way.

Is it possible they're just hiring these folks to try and make their models better to later replace those people? It's possible. But I'm not sure when in time, if ever, they'll reach the point where that was viable.

They are likely lying:

https://www.anthropic.com/candidate-ai-guidance

> During take-home assessments Complete these without Claude unless we indicate otherwise. We’d like to assess your unique skills and strengths. We'll be clear when AI is allowed (example: "You may use Claude for this coding challenge").

> During live interviews This is all you–no AI assistance unless we indicate otherwise. We’re curious to see how you think through problems in real time. If you require any accommodations for your interviews, please let your recruiter know early in the process.

He'd have to ask yet did not ask? A CPO of an AI company?

> If AI is a threat to software engineering, I wouldn't expect many software engineers to actively accelerate that trend. I personally don't view it as a threat, but some people (non engineers?) obviously do.

Software engineers have been automating away jobs for other people for nearly a century. It would be quite rich if the profession suddenly felt qualms about the process! (TBC I think automation is great and should always be pursued. Ofc there are real human concerns when change happens quickly but I am skeptical that smashing the looms is the best response)