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AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

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Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#61

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

re-thc wrote: post #38
cube2222 wrote: post #24

I have a friend who needed to generate 400 random qr codes. Did the first half in 4 hours, going one by one through an online website. Learning about it mid through that process I told her to try asking chatgpt to write a python script for it (she knows a bit of python, knows how to run a script etc.). Needed a pip install of the qr code lib, but other than that worked right away. ChatGPT turned the next 4 hours of m…

> ChatGPT turned the next 4 hours of menial work into 10 minutes. This is the true incoming disruption. Problem is how do you know if it's correct? If you have to verify it all it may take even longer. And when it's wrong it's back to square 1. > People who just vaguely know how to program, getting a powerful tool that can assist them 95% of the way for simple automations like this. Is assuming it's correct.

It doesn't take 4 hours to code review a few lines of code for generating random QR codes.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#62

Post by fxj »

One thing that is often overlooked in the discussionis that GPT is just extracting the information from sites like stackoverflow and such and distills its knowledge to write new code. But what happens if the main source of coding knowledge - stack overflow etc - suddenly falls dry? No new information for GPT. We all know that unmaintained code starts rotting and this is what will happen to the GPT generated code. GPT needs the fresh blood of human devs to do its job. And this is even more true for new languages and toolkits. First the tutorials and docs have to be written in order for GPT to learn the new code.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#63

Post by adventured »

jstx1 wrote: post #56
sangnoir wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet AI-reliant developers are going to be more reviled than PHP developers way back during peak PHP-hate times.

Maybe but only if you're imagining completely new and inexperienced people who wouldn't be able to get anything done without AI entering the field - I can see how that can cause an emotional reaction. But if you compare two experienced developers - one of them uses AI, the other doesn't - I don't see what's there to be reviled, one of them just found a tool that makes them more productive.

The reviled part of it is going to come from the bottom 2/3 of people writing code today getting brutalized economically (permanent job destruction and the lowering of income for those in that segment that manage to find jobs writing code and or managing AI that writes the code).

The median software developer in the US is solidly earning six figures. That's going away, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to be angry about it. Their previously solid path up and out of the middle class is about to vanish. They were betting on that. A large number of people are in school today thinking that median software developer job, writing code, paying $110k per year + great benefits, is still going to be there in 2033.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#64

Post by shrimp_emoji »

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #10

Sure, just as growth of new tech will always create more jobs. But there is a twist: a whole generation of people get fucked over. Or maybe multiple generations. Sure, they can always learn new skills, right? RIGHT? Downvote me as you wish, plesbians.

Well, in the fullness of time, that's still a happy ending, no?

That's the story of life itself: whole generations of people die, ideally while planting ever-bigger trees for future generations to enjoy the shade under. This happens over and over, drips of tragedy in an ocean of comedy. :D

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#65

Post by Beltiras »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #16

I am believing that, too. Just imagine this: Take a Laptop with WinXP+Office 98 from the 2000 era and travel back in time to the 60s or 70s using a time machine. Show the power of Excel to any of those developers punching holes into a punch card, feeding room-sized "computers". Tell them that this "Excel" tool is used by business and sales people without any programming skills. Those developers would clearly tell the…

You have the right comparison. Developers need to remember that nobody had a job punching holes in cards after the revolution of personal computing. Going to be the same here. The jobs will revolve around operating the new "loom" which we have been given.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#66

Post by soco »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #16

I am believing that, too. Just imagine this: Take a Laptop with WinXP+Office 98 from the 2000 era and travel back in time to the 60s or 70s using a time machine. Show the power of Excel to any of those developers punching holes into a punch card, feeding room-sized "computers". Tell them that this "Excel" tool is used by business and sales people without any programming skills. Those developers would clearly tell the…

The middle class, which they (used to) represent, has lost lots and lots of buying power since then. So do they have jobs? Yes. Are they worse off? Also yes.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#67

Post by xnx »

soco wrote: post #66
littlecranky67 wrote: post #16

I am believing that, too. Just imagine this: Take a Laptop with WinXP+Office 98 from the 2000 era and travel back in time to the 60s or 70s using a time machine. Show the power of Excel to any of those developers punching holes into a punch card, feeding room-sized "computers". Tell them that this "Excel" tool is used by business and sales people without any programming skills. Those developers would clearly tell the…

The middle class, which they (used to) represent, has lost lots and lots of buying power since then. So do they have jobs? Yes. Are they worse off? Also yes.

> Are they worse off? Also yes.

There's no time in human history that I'd rather live in than the present day.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#68

Post by neotrope »

I’m not sure this is a good metric.

> look around you and count how many products or services you use regularly that you wish are better digitized or “software-ized.” Unless and until that number is 0, there will be more developers, not less.

Even before LLMs, fully digitized markets are regularly disrupted by better iterations of software.

More developers will be needed because AI is increasing the addressable market of software.

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#69

Post by welshwelsh »

rcme wrote: post #44
littlecranky67 wrote: post #16

I am believing that, too. Just imagine this: Take a Laptop with WinXP+Office 98 from the 2000 era and travel back in time to the 60s or 70s using a time machine. Show the power of Excel to any of those developers punching holes into a punch card, feeding room-sized "computers". Tell them that this "Excel" tool is used by business and sales people without any programming skills. Those developers would clearly tell the…

I disagree. Think about it like this: Excel can do more than punch cards can, but it's also harder to learn. So you can put in more effort and get more out, e.g. you might need 130% of the knowledge, but you get 150% of the result. These new generative AI algorithms make things easier, but they produce worse results. E.g. you can put in 50% of the effort and get 80% of the result. By lowering the amount of knowledge…

I feel like you could say the same about Python.

There's nothing you can do in Python that you can't do in C. But while Python is easier to learn and use than C, it's less efficient, in some cases hundreds of times slower than C, let alone expertly-optimized assembly.

But the ease of application development in languages like Python has expanded the scope of what can be realistically done with software, causing developer employment and salaries to rise while lowering the required computer science knowledge.

As for the luddites, they lacked imagination. Low-skilled laborers might have been able to make textiles, but there were plenty of lucrative opportunities for talented people able to design, build and maintain machinery instead of merely operating it. It was not uncommon for talented engineers to become factory owners themselves, some of whom started as unskilled laborers (Samuel Slater, for example).

Re: AI Will Create More Developers, Not Less

#70

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

fxj wrote: post #62

One thing that is often overlooked in the discussionis that GPT is just extracting the information from sites like stackoverflow and such and distills its knowledge to write new code. But what happens if the main source of coding knowledge - stack overflow etc - suddenly falls dry? No new information for GPT. We all know that unmaintained code starts rotting and this is what will happen to the GPT generated code. GPT…

It can learn from it's own users. People paste their code into GPT for context, so it'll see new patterns that way. People paste the error message that results from some bad code GPT spit out, it learns from context plus the error text what the correct code should be.
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