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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

#141

Post by jayd16 »

JimDabell wrote: post #109
franktankbank wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 want…

Part of the reason software ate the world is standardized tooling. Going back to everyone having completely bespoke ways of doing things would be a nightmare.

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

#142

Post by zeroonetwothree »

xnx wrote: post #8

Misleading > Among the 270 jobs in the 1950 U.S. census, only one job was automated away — elevator operator. But many others were rendered obsolete by new technology, like the job of telegraph operator. In that same time farm jobs went from 15% of the workforce to 2%.

Farm employment itself has decreased 4x compared to 1950 (the % figure overstates it since the total workforce is larger). However if we consider the broader "food" industry employment has increased substantially.

Thus we may see "coder" employment decrease but the broader "software/tech" industry increase in employment.

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

#143

Post by zeroonetwothree »

LadyCailin wrote: post #79

I think it’s useful to distinguish between LLM and AI. I think this criticism is valid against LLMs, but not against AI. LLMs are a useful tool, but they aren’t AI. Once actual AI is a thing, I think it’s worth revisiting this topic. I’m certain we’ll get there one day, but it will probably be a lot like fusion.

I guess by "actual AI" you mean what most people call "AGI"

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

#144

Post by Rooster61 »

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.

This has very little to do with the actual demand for good software though. People very much still want good software that works. The issue is the group of people in the industry that have learned they can push blasphemously useless crap, charge a premium, and have people be forced to consume it due to poor governance over market practices (monopolies, blatantly anti-consumer features, etc).

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

#145

Post by poidos »

amelius wrote: post #140
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…

> at best you can have AI doing 90% of the work as long as an expert developer is driving things. But that puts 90% of developers out of a job. And I don't see why it couldn't become 99%.

It only puts 90% of developers out of a job if the demand for software stays flat.

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

#146

Post by prmph »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #114
justAnotherHero wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deploying software has been reduced to just running 'vercel' in the terminal, something the agent has zero problems with if they were to just ask. Distributing desktop software is a bit harder depending on the platform. The gap between a pet project and great software is still very wide and I have a hard time believing that it will ever be bridged. I don't see how a solved problem even before ai is the thing that won…

TBF the anti-AI artists are insisting AI will never create great works of art. I disagree. But I do agree with Richard Sutton that it would need a reward function steering it towards a popular perception of great art, whatever that may be. I can approximate that with sampling and using my subjectivity to pick the ones I like most and then iterate on variants thereof until I am exhausted/satisfied. That's not the same…

AI is unlikely to ever create great works of art because art is not, and has never been just about technical excellence; it is fundamentally a human thing: one human communicating to another. Just even knowing that some art was AI produced is enough to not see it as great: there is no human story or experience behind it, no human context, etc. You can definitely appreciate it in the category of AI work, however.

AI still struggles with technical excellence in some genres of art, but even if they master this, this human element they cannot overcome, by definition.

It's like piano performance: AI can already generate a "prefect" performance audio, a MIDI file can already encode that. But, I hate MIDI files, none of the live-ness, the weirdness, and non-repeatable nuances of an actual performance by an actual pianist.

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

#147

Post by JimDabell »

amelius wrote: post #140
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…

> at best you can have AI doing 90% of the work as long as an expert developer is driving things. But that puts 90% of developers out of a job. And I don't see why it couldn't become 99%.

No, you are ignoring my central point by assuming that the amount of software that is being produced remains fixed. Every other time we have increased software engineer productivity, we have responded by producing more software.

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

#148

Post by [deleted] »

amelius wrote: post #140
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…

> at best you can have AI doing 90% of the work as long as an expert developer is driving things. But that puts 90% of developers out of a job. And I don't see why it couldn't become 99%.

[deleted]

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

#149

Post by IshKebab »

Wishful thinking. Code has always been a bottleneck. It never took zero time.

Also declaring that it "won't" is an assertion that AI will stop improving, which is absurd.

A graph showing different numbers of "software developers" and "computer programmers" as some kind of evidence of something other than that people prefer fancy sounding names is extremely dumb. You may as well plot "HR" vs "personnel" and conclude that companies no longer have people.

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

#150

Post by SecretDreams »

poidos wrote: post #145
amelius wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at best you can have AI doing 90% of the work as long as an expert developer is driving things. But that puts 90% of developers out of a job. And I don't see why it couldn't become 99%.

It only puts 90% of developers out of a job if the demand for software stays flat.

How much does the appetite for good* software need to grow to not have loss of jobs?
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