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Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

toddle.dev

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Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

#81

Post by Capricorn2481 »

Yenrabbit wrote: post #56
teeray wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll believe it when I can page an AI at 3AM, go back to sleep, and have it autonomously root-cause and fix a production outage no matter the cause .

What percentage of human software engineers would you guess pass this bar?

I'd say most of my teammates could do this. It's not a unique skill to debug a prod error.

I would say 0% of AI does? What AI can even read production environment vars, find logs in arbitrary parts of the file system, measure usage statistics, and fix the code without causing another bug?

Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

#82

Post by CharlieDigital »

phreeza wrote: post #63
CharlieDigital wrote: post #26

You need strong guys to move things around because you don't have a pneumatic crane. Now you have pneumatic crane, you can move stacks and stacks of things around with ease. You need less strong guys around and instead there is a new need for fewer people that are well-trained on how to operate this pneumatic crane safely. You'll get more work done with less people. That's what's happening with software engineering a…

The industrialization of coding is not a new thing though, all sorts of tooling and standardisation could be described in the same terms. An LLM is just another gizmo that may or may not make the assembly line move faster.

Very different.

I'm sure it was brought up before with things like IDEs, UML, etc., etc.

But now these tools are actually competent at generating code and improving fast.

Coding up until now has still mostly been a craft or an art and less of a true engineering discipline.

Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

#85

Post by dasil003 »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #26

You need strong guys to move things around because you don't have a pneumatic crane. Now you have pneumatic crane, you can move stacks and stacks of things around with ease. You need less strong guys around and instead there is a new need for fewer people that are well-trained on how to operate this pneumatic crane safely. You'll get more work done with less people. That's what's happening with software engineering a…

The problem with this analogy is that the hard part of writing software isn’t about bulk jobs that are easily specified with cut and dried success criteria. It’s about designing and implementing things where many tiny details matter and are connected to real world outcomes in ways that can not be fully deduced from the symbols present in code. If you get these things subtly wrong than programming is net negative because you now have more mess to wade through than if you were starting from scratch. LLMs in the hands of weak engineers will actually be net negative. I do think jobs will be lost because there are currently a lot of net negative programmers out there simply because knowing syntax and algorithms has historically been enough to get a lot of jobs even if higher level systemic thinking and communication is lacking. That will cause a reduction in overall numbers, but I would argue that was already an existing inefficiency and it will be interesting to see how much it impacts the big picture as ultimately we still need people to understand and debug all the biz critical code out there.

Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

#86

Post by TheGRS »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #7

Bean counters don't like specialists, because they can't evaluate the value of specialists without having that specialist knowledge themselves...

Disagreed, competent businesses analyze this stuff at least a high level. Its why many of us spend so much time classifying various projects and efforts into capital expenditures. Large corps understand the value of a lawyer these days, who are highly specialized, because they can see the sort of returns it gets them. But at the end of the day they need to see why any effort is either earning them more money or costing them less money.

Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

#87

Post by ratherbefuddled »

Capitalism is always looking for ways to make complex, expensive work simpler and cheaper. Why wouldn't it?

The thing is it doesn't really matter what tools you use. The problems are complex and they don't become simpler just because you use an LLM. We will gain a bit of efficiency and then spend that gain on whatever new problems LLMs throw up plus the constant stream of new problems the world generates.

Software engineers are not getting replaced by LLMs any more than they are by UML, visual programming tools, RPA, MDD, code generators or any of the other fads that have come and gone over the years.

Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

#88

Post by TSUTiger »

prewett wrote: post #57

I was part of a group people that tended towards artsy (and definitely not rationalist). This was when everyone had an idea for a new app, and I kept getting people trying to get me to work for equity. They seemed to have these same kinds of unrealistic expectations. I eventually came to the conclusion that they saw software as like painting. It seems to take about 8 - 24 hrs to create a work of art (assuming the ide…

Obviously this depends on _where_ you're working, but personally, I like the plumber metaphor -- nobody notices the plumber until things aren't working properly and by then you're in deep shit.

Software is working great: Everything's working great, why do we pay you again!?

Software is broken: Everything's broken, why do we pay you!?

Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

#89

Post by insane_dreamer »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #47

The same reason all companies try to reduce labor: cut costs, better returns for shareholders. There's nothing special about SWEs vs any other class of worker. If they can be replaced or eliminated, they will be, just like any other worker.

You know what job is safer than a SWE? A barber.

Think about it -- what's the ROI on creating a robot so sophisticated that it can handle all the intricacies and special customer requests of hair cutting/styling? You're unlikely to save any money over hiring humans.

Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

#90

Post by CharlieDigital »

taylodl wrote: post #55
CharlieDigital wrote: post #26

You need strong guys to move things around because you don't have a pneumatic crane. Now you have pneumatic crane, you can move stacks and stacks of things around with ease. You need less strong guys around and instead there is a new need for fewer people that are well-trained on how to operate this pneumatic crane safely. You'll get more work done with less people. That's what's happening with software engineering a…

> it's an industrialization of coding That's a fantastic insight. There's a popular metaphor comparing software developers to blacksmiths, emphasizing the craft and trade aspects of the profession. Historically, blacksmiths were largely automated out of existence, replaced by highly skilled metallurgists and industrial automation engineers, albeit in much smaller numbers. As we look toward the future, we must conside…

Yes, I think the blacksmith metaphor is also an excellent one because a single die stamping machine can produce thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of times the same output as a single blacksmith.

You still need people, but you need them to: 1) operate and maintain the machine, 2) check for quality, 3) do some fine, detailed work, 4) do the things that the machine is not good at. The skillsets are just different now and you need less people while producing significantly more output.

Whereas a 4'10", 100lb woman probably wouldn't have been a productive blacksmith, she can be adept at building fine metal parts with the industrial tools.

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