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Will AI take web developer jobs?

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Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#31

Post by rvz »

Let's just say it won't take the jobs of pilots.

But for web developers? Most certainly Yes. They will be the first and especially for those who love redoing their web app with hundreds of web frameworks, releasing web app clones, javascript and debating about the sea of libraries to use that compete against themselves.

It is best trained on the entire javascript and typescript ecosystem and those specializing in web development which is the low hanging fruit, will be easily replaced.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#32

Post by ripped_britches »

It’s hard to know how this will affect jobs but the argument that current day capabilities will be relevant in the near future doesn’t make much sense to me.

I think it would be unexpected if within 2 years we don’t have AI systems that have excellent taste and judgement.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#33

Post by SoftTalker »

crote wrote: post #8

It's missing one critical point: if AI makes a good developer 10% more productive, the industry needs 10% less developers to achieve the same output. You're not getting replaced by AI. You're getting replaced by a coworker using AI. It doesn't matter how poorly AI performs at any remotely complicated task, what matters is how many developer-hours it saves by not having to manually write as much boilerplate.

Writing boilerplate is not what I spend time on. Boilerplate generation is easily automated you don’t need AI for that.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#34

Post by codingdave »

risyachka wrote: post #16
Madmallard wrote: post #9

AI isn't taking American jobs. Foreign developer agencies utilizing AI and being paid a fraction of what American employees are being paid are taking American jobs.

Outsourcing literally in 100% cases results in shitty product. Every single time. So when some company outsources its development it is always good news - it can be pretty easily crushed with in-house dev team from a competitor.

Why do you assume that this is about outsourcing? So far, every international company I've worked for in the last decade has insourced dev, but moved it out of the USA, then laid off the American devs. That is not about outsourcing at all, it is about responding to cost discrepancies in the global market.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#35

Post by simonw »

crote wrote: post #8

It's missing one critical point: if AI makes a good developer 10% more productive, the industry needs 10% less developers to achieve the same output. You're not getting replaced by AI. You're getting replaced by a coworker using AI. It doesn't matter how poorly AI performs at any remotely complicated task, what matters is how many developer-hours it saves by not having to manually write as much boilerplate.

Alternatively: if AI makes a good developer 2x more productive (which I do think is possible based on my own experience), developers are now 2x more valuable to employers. The cost of building software drops in half, which means employers that previously wouldn't have developed their own software (too expensive) are now in the market for custom solutions. Demand for developers goes up.

If you believe that making developers 10% more productive results in a need for ~10% less developers, why didn't open source software over the past ~20 years harm our profession?

Working with open source packages from npm and PyPI has given me WAY more than a 10% boost - so much stuff I don't have to write from scratch now!

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#37

Post by krembo »

journal wrote: post #5

GPT4o-mini, I asked it to refactor my class to a property with backing field and trim. It did that, but it also lost my Email property in the process. I asked it about it and it apologized and gave it back. Same with GPT4o.

Losing a property seems like a small price to pay for the work that it saved you. Yes, you need to do code review and that takes time, but from my experience the weights are totally in favor of using AI. Also, nice to remember, we are still at the early stages of AI, looking forward even 3 years from now doesn't look good for devs.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#38

Post by akomtu »

It doesn't need to completely replace software devs. Rather, AI will make a $25k/year software dev as good as a $250k/year software dev, and the 25k one won't even need to speak English. The real question is: will AI enable the now jobless 250k software dev do something that's so valuable that the US companies will need his services at this price?

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#39

Post by MyOutfitIsVague »

SunlitCat wrote: post #19
journal wrote: post #5

GPT4o-mini, I asked it to refactor my class to a property with backing field and trim. It did that, but it also lost my Email property in the process. I asked it about it and it apologized and gave it back. Same with GPT4o.

Yes! Although not really funny (if you want to use ChatGPT to do some real work), it's kinda cute how it always apologizes and says sorry if you remark that it lost something you were sure you included in your prompt. :) Personally, I would like all my personal interaction with people going like that. Life would be totally easier!

They're obnoxiously obsequious, though. They remind me of a customer service worker dialed up to 11. I'd rather be talked to straight, without all the "You're absolutely right!" and "Oh, I'm sorry!" nonsense.
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