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Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

normaltech.ai

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Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#101

Post by jghn »

baalimago wrote: post #6

It most certainly will replace software engineers. What's missing is, as the article suggests, the "Delivery" bit. But that's not the realm of software engineers, that's the realm of DevOps/SRE/Cloud engineers. I work as a cloud engineer and have been contacted by multiple non-engineering friends who have now been able to create their pet projects from scratch in different languages and have it running locally, as we…

What you're describing is an effect that has always existed. It became clear to me a few decades ago earlier in my career that if a dev's only real skill was "write code" that they were severely limited compared to people who had strong domain knowledge *and* had "write code".

The tech boom has made people forget this, but that fact never changed. And now what we're seeing is that the "write code" part is increasingly becoming devalued. What does this mean? That those with domain knowledge will still be able to function, whereas people who could only write code will be devalued.

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#102

Post by RA_Fisher »

orangecoffee wrote: post #98
RA_Fisher wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup! I was a part of the learn to code industry. I am proud of that, bc I know my worker helped a lot of marginalized people gain wealth and power (woo!). My own occupation, stats and econometrics, requires years of higher education to even begin (and decades to master), and yet ~ half of SWE were looking down on me, disrespecting me. To be clear, there were many who were not, but usually they were from some marginal…

You are making a wrong assumption that more knowlege leads to more comp, it never has or will.

I’d certainly not say it’s everything, look at all the highly-paid mediocre CEOs. Education has rigorously been shown to lead to higher incomes and wealth on average.

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#103

Post by Yokohiii »

mteoharov wrote: post #91

I work at a dev agency, most of our clients are start ups that need to go into the market quickly. We've used agentic development for about a year and a half now and our roles have changed drastically during that time. I can't speak to the volume of projects flowing in (as I do not know the exact numbers) but from what I can see all that has changed is the expectations for what can be delivered. And instead of 5 peop…

> Now everybody has superpowers.

I think that it's very odd how AI enthusiasts misinterpret the situation. If it turns out to be good enough to produce greenfield projects with agentic coding, then it will not only affect developers, but also whole companies and whole business sectors.

The whole dev agency business model is only there because less technical companies don't know how to deal with software, others are just opportunistic to outsource the initial, headcount heavy work. But now the tech is already at the fingertips of an agencies customer, it is only a matter of time those CEO and managers start vibe coding and realize the "only" need one dev that has glimpse of tech skill.

This could also extend to many SaaS businesses. I still see a lot of small businesses that ask for custom software to get rid of manual work. Serious software devs were always too expensive for them. So they either have crappy code from someones nephew or a SaaS that barely works. Now they can create their custom solutions, probably still quite crappy, but they can get more out of it.

What big tech does is kind of whatever, they are readjusting for recession. I am a bit concerned about the disruption in the small to mid sized tech sectors.

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#104

Post by piker »

lnenad wrote: post #64
piker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> alternative was a human building those ... or them not existing at all?

I'm talking about actual live services that deliver money to someone, not toy projects. Do you think there's even a slight percentage of those or are 100% of the projects hosted by these services throwaway shit?

No, I just mean there is a rate at which people wouldn't have been able to do them economically.

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#105

Post by orangecoffee »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #102
orangecoffee wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making a wrong assumption that more knowlege leads to more comp, it never has or will.

I’d certainly not say it’s everything, look at all the highly-paid mediocre CEOs. Education has rigorously been shown to lead to higher incomes and wealth on average.

Education is not knowledge either. Today market most directly pays for skilled work that increases revenue/profit. Correlation drops after that. It's a struggle I've been trying to reason for myself too.

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#106

Post by Yokohiii »

torben-friis wrote: post #27
baalimago wrote: post #6

It most certainly will replace software engineers. What's missing is, as the article suggests, the "Delivery" bit. But that's not the realm of software engineers, that's the realm of DevOps/SRE/Cloud engineers. I work as a cloud engineer and have been contacted by multiple non-engineering friends who have now been able to create their pet projects from scratch in different languages and have it running locally, as we…

Generation and maintenance are very different beasts. There are engineers that work making a 2 weeks app that is never revisited again, I guess, but I don't know anyone that makes a living from that. Maybe the "WordPress site for your business" gigs. The issue comes when you have 432 functionalities and have to add the 433 without interfering with the others. Or when you cant afford slightly wrong. Or when each funct…

I mean that is a classic problem right? We know that outsourced green field projects done by third parties are tend to be low quality or at least are slow and expensive to integrate into a business. Many issues arise when you try to deploy these projects and more show up once it is out. Eventually there is someone reasoning how to fix the problems. An LLM wont do it on it's own, there are too many invisible constraints.

One can argue that software engineering will fundamentally change, but there is and will still be a need for people that know what software engineering is and how to apply it.

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#107

Post by [deleted] »

Yokohiii wrote: post #103
mteoharov wrote: post #91

I work at a dev agency, most of our clients are start ups that need to go into the market quickly. We've used agentic development for about a year and a half now and our roles have changed drastically during that time. I can't speak to the volume of projects flowing in (as I do not know the exact numbers) but from what I can see all that has changed is the expectations for what can be delivered. And instead of 5 peop…

> Now everybody has superpowers. I think that it's very odd how AI enthusiasts misinterpret the situation. If it turns out to be good enough to produce greenfield projects with agentic coding, then it will not only affect developers, but also whole companies and whole business sectors. The whole dev agency business model is only there because less technical companies don't know how to deal with software, others are j…

[deleted]

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#108

Post by _the_inflator »

The trouble I have is, that unlike the Cobol and Assembler era of the Mainframes, React, JavaScript and Python are beginner technology for AI.

In other words: AI doesn't have a blind spot no matter whether AI will ever "get" Cobol or not.

So even if we jump into 2050, we won't have to fix any React application due to three simply reasons: It is easier to build something new; AI understands the old garbage; and the last one: who knows, what will be in 2050?

Tough time.

My biggest concern is not AI, but the total demotivation of the veterans. Suddenly there isn't merit nor fun in building something over a week you took off. And that hits hard.

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#109

Post by JimDabell »

franktankbank wrote: post #81
JimDabell wrote: post #65

We have been aggressively and enthusiastically automating away software engineering for the entire history of the computer industry. Every time we do so, we are able to build bigger, better things more quickly. When this happens, our work becomes more valuable and expectations rise to match. The world’s appetite for software has been insatiable so far. AI hasn’t replaced software engineers because every time we becom…

> we might finally become productive enough to exhaust the world’s appetite for software. I think we are past this point personally. Lots of blasphemously useless crap being built.

When I use any moderately complex piece of software, for instance a word processor, the UI is stacked full of things I don’t use, making it less convenient for me to use. At the same time, simple features that would be useful to me are not present. Software is currently aimed at the highest common factor so that it appeals to as many people as possible, which paradoxically makes it suboptimal for everybody.

If I wanted to build something that is specific to my needs, this would be prohibitively time consuming and expensive. Even today with all the latest models – even if what I want is relatively mundane.

To add on to that, what would be produced would be ideal for me but less ideal for other people. Other people need things that I don’t, and they don’t need things that I do. And people’s needs change over time. So the actual range of software that there is appetite for is the result of a huge combinatorial explosion of features, for every single type of application out there.

The appetite you are thinking is satisfied today is merely “there is an app that does X” but the appetite that is actually present once we are able to create software much more efficiently is more along the lines of “everybody gets their own custom app that does X”.

I don’t think the appetite for software can be quenched until we have just-in-time feature generation. That is definitely not within present day capabilities.

Re: Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't

#110

Post by RA_Fisher »

orangecoffee wrote: post #105
RA_Fisher wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d certainly not say it’s everything, look at all the highly-paid mediocre CEOs. Education has rigorously been shown to lead to higher incomes and wealth on average.

Education is not knowledge either. Today market most directly pays for skilled work that increases revenue/profit. Correlation drops after that. It's a struggle I've been trying to reason for myself too.

True, but high-quality education, whether personal or formally, tends to produce high-quality knowledge.

Yes, companies pay for what’s perceived to create revenue and profit (and yes, skills are a major factor in that).

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