Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by jghn » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #128

jghn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 increasingl…

> 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". Indeed. If we peel back the rationalizations, it is patently obvious that code has no meaning apart from the domain it exists in. Its entire meaning is derived from the domain and from the purpose to which it is put and for the sake of which it is written. There is no…

This is it exactly. Show me a dev who could competently function as a PM in their industry, and I'll show you a dev who will succeed in the new world. [0]

[0] I am not talking about low level PMs who just fill in scrum points and generate charts. There are also PMs who lack domain knowledge!

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

#192

Post by TheDong » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:01 PM UTC

zero_shift wrote: post #175

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…

> I don’t see any evidence of this happening, but if somebody wants to make this argument, they should be clear about why this time is different It does seem to be happening - at least in mobile app stores. There's some recent analysis that demonstrates how, despite a huge updraft in the quantity of apps released, the aggregate count of reviews and downloads remains static. In other words, there are now many more app…

> money has to come from somewhere. Someone has to give it to you. So it you want to keep growing, you need someone who isn't paying for software, to start.

Right now, people pay all sorts of money for real interactions with real people, most notably friendship and dating.

Tiktok has done a good job at starting to disrupt this, but with AI and better VR technology, maybe we can finish the job and disrupt all human relationships, all romantic relationships, all friendships. It's a huge addressable market (all humans), and if even just 5% of all humans buy a $5 virtual coffee (free to produce, pure profit) for their AI partner each day, that would be a massive increase in software spend.

Once we hit "The Matrix", that'll mean software has nowhere left to go.

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

#193

Post by gman2093 » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:01 PM UTC

handzhiev wrote: post #94

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…

I agree with a lot that you say and notice similar trends in our work. I am a little skeptical about this one though: "You don't really need to work for a company anymore, because a solo dev can absolutely build crazy things, so it's not like you need to rely on anyone else." One of the reasons for devs to work in company is not that they can't deliver the work themselves. It's that they don't have the connections to…

Also, I don't think LLMs have invented a way to make our applications maintenance-free. At some point outages become very costly, and a 24/7 support schedule for 1 dev is going to have trouble scaling. When production is down, we generally don't have some frontline staff vibecode it back up.

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

#194

Post by pramodbiligiri » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:01 PM UTC

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%.

They seem to address that: "This is sharply different from occupations such as agriculture in which labor demand was famously decimated due to mechanization and automation. The difference is that the amount of calories people consume is relatively fixed — even a 25% increase led to the obesity epidemic — whereas the amount of software produced has grown a millionfold."

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

#195

Post by lonelyasacloud » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:01 PM UTC

afaik, no vendor offers any guarantees on the work their agents do.

Therefore sane organisations using those agents currently need to have someone they trust to review and sign off of on anything consequential those agents do on their behalf. Lawyers for legal, Doctors for medical, Software Engineers for Software etc.

Given the amount of money being thrown at AI - and the need for return - it seems unlikely that regardless of domain that lack of guarantees is a situation that will persist.

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

#196

Post by 5701652400 » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:01 PM UTC

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #142

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.

nonsense. you are shifting definitions of what "coding" / "producing/operating software" as a profession is.

by this logic, if I define "food" industry as sitting on my couch as a "job", with govenment (payouts) my employment, you get "food" industry at employment at 100%!

once you start shifting definitions, it is slippery slope. you can prove anything and argue anything. and it is all loosing meaning. tactic usually employed to confuse and mislead people.

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

#197

Post by sofal » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:02 PM UTC

prmph wrote: post #146

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Your entire argument hinges on being able to tell the extent to which generative AI was used in the creation of any given piece of art, which capability you will not have. You therefore fall into the category the commenter mentioned in that your perception of the value of a piece of art can be heavily influenced by someone convincing you it was AI generated, regardless of the facts.

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

#198

Post by llbbdd » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

altern8 wrote: post #158

vitally3643 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're not too many years away from the end state of software. We already collectively produce more software than anyone really wants, and the bulk of it is anywhere between garbage and outright fraud, if not actively malicious. The end state, I think, is that everyone who needs small software to manage a todo list or synchronize files, or whatever "normal" people do, will end up with bespoke personalized soft…

> I think, is that everyone who needs small software to manage a todo list or synchronize files, or whatever "normal" people do, will end up with bespoke personalized software written by their own AI People can't be bothered to cook for themselves, and often order crappy, unhealthy food that costs 10 times as much just so they don't have to cook. Now they're going to build their own software every time they think the…

Gemini at least will produce small functional inline sample apps without being explicitly told to, particularly if you're trying to learn about something, it'll produce an interactive diagram or similar. I can see a future where these kinds of end users aren't necessarily saying "I can build an app for this", but their AI can just produce one when appropriate.

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

#199

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:05 PM UTC

_the_inflator wrote: post #108

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 la…

[deleted]

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

#200

Post by altern8 » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 3:06 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #162

altern8 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think, is that everyone who needs small software to manage a todo list or synchronize files, or whatever "normal" people do, will end up with bespoke personalized software written by their own AI People can't be bothered to cook for themselves, and often order crappy, unhealthy food that costs 10 times as much just so they don't have to cook. Now they're going to build their own software every time they think the…

If they can do it from their couch by talking to their phone, they might.

While eating the junk food I was talking about :-D