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The next two years of software engineering

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Re: The next two years of software engineering

#231

Post by menaerus »

Ray20 wrote: post #176
menaerus wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do wonder what sort of economy change is coming to us because companies will hypothetically need to hire less people to sustain the equal output of today. They can do that basically today so not even hypothetically anymore, it just needs some time to take off. The question IMO is, who will be creating the demand on the other side for all of these goods produced if so many people will be left without the jobs…

> The question IMO is, who will be creating the demand on the other side for all of these goods produced if so many people will be left without the jobs? There is no reason why people will left without jobs. Ultimately, "job" is simply a superstructure for satisfying people's needs. As long as people have needs and the ability to satisfy them, there will be jobs in the market. AI change nothing in those aspects.

I think it very much does. Those exact needs so far have been fulfilled by N people jobs. Today those same needs are going to be fulfilled by N-M people jobs. For your hypothesis to work, human, or shall I say better, market needs to scale such that M people left redundant will be needed to cover that new gap. The thing is that I am not so sure about the "scaling" part. Not to mention that people's skills also need to scale such so that they can deliver the value for scaling the market. Skills that we had until yesterday are slowly started to begin a thing of a past so I am wondering what type of skills people will need in order to get those "new" jobs? I would genuinely like to hear the opinion because I am not really positive that the market will self-adjust itself such that the economy will remain the same.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#232

Post by quest88 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #106
kylecazar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half strawman -- a mudman, perhaps. Because we're seeing proper experts with credentials jump on the 'shit, AI can do all of this for me' realization blog post train.

Which experts?

the author of this post and Steve yegge come to mind

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#235

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

izacus wrote: post #227
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never worked “for fun”. My job for 30 years is just a means to support my addiction to food and shelter. I don’t hate my job especially my last 3 since 2020 when I started working remotely. But it is just something I do.

Yes, that's the answer that sounds utterly miserable. Spending 30 years toiling for a third of your day at something you don't like. I'm sorry for you as well.

Out of all the things I consider “toiling” waking up, rolling out of bed, and walking over to the room next door is not one of them.

I’m more concerned that it is the highlight of someone’s life being in front of a computer all day.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#236

Post by quest88 »

hnthrow0287345 wrote: post #214
throwaway6734 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I perform software engineering at a research oriented institution and there are some projects I can now prototype without writing a line of code. The productivity benefits are massive

Prototypes are always meant to be thrown away though, someone's going to have to redo it to comply with coding standards, scaling requirements, and existing patterns in the code base. If the prototype can be just dropped in and clear a PR and comply with all the standards, you're just doing software engineering for less money!

the reality is people will be shipping "prototype code" all the time, outpacing those that don't and winning.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#238

Post by seberino »

chankstein38 wrote: post #224
maciejzj wrote: post #143

TBH, it all feels like a huge gamble at this point. Neither skills, education, institutional ties, nor current employment can guarantee a stable foundation for life. This hits harder depending on how much money, social capital, or debt you accumulated before this volatility began. If you’ve paid off your debts, bought a house, and stabilized your family life, you’re gambling with how comfortable the coming years will…

Amen. It's hard to live with hope right now at all. Programmer or otherwise we're constantly told we're all going to be replaced and the economy is a mess (US). Definitely a depressing time to be alive.

Not sure that is warranted. AI will create exciting changes to society for the better. These times are uncertain but certainly not depressing.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#239

Post by dust42 »

From my experience AI is only good with mainstream coding tasks. Javascript, node, react, crud. Whatever it has seen in overabundance, it is good with. Already with typescript it is less strong than with javascript. It is just a clever token generator without intelligence. Often it resembles intelligence but so can a human by learning quotes of famous people.

It is a new and exciting tool but immediately limited with medium complex tasks. Also we will see a lot more code with tricky bugs coming out of AI assistants and all of that needs to be maintained. If software development gets cheaper per line of code then there will be more demand. And someone has to clean up the mess created by people who have no clue whatsoever of SWE.

Once upon a time people developed software with punch hole cards. Even without AI a developer today is orders of magnitude more proficient than that.

The only thing I hope I am not going to see in my lifetime is real artificial intelligence.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#240

Post by encyclopedism »

Jean-Papoulos wrote: post #112

>The flip scenario: AI unlocks massive demand for developers across every industry, not just tech. Healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and finance all start embedding software and automation. I find this one hard to believe. Software is already massively present in all these industries and has already replaced jobs. The last step is complete automation (ie drone tractors that can load up at a hub, go to the field…

I tend to agree with your assessment. The increase in demand cannot possibly equal the loss from AI.

Given projections of AI abilities over time AI necessarily creates downward pressure on new job creation. AI is for reducing and/or eliminating jobs (by way of increasing efficiency).

AI isn't creating 'new' things, it's reducing the time needed to do what was already being done. Unlike the automobile revolution new job categories aren't being created with AI.

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