Will we see growing unemployment in software development? Maybe in the short term, but the appetite for software is not finite just as the appetite for any other kind of economic tool is not finite.

What percentage of software just ceases development when it's "good enough?" Probably a tiny percentage of all software, and which is mostly internal tooling.

It's going to push software development into the front of business development precisely because it will be cheaper to develop. The companies that will benefit from AI at least early on will all be software-driven companies since the results are undeniable. If software developers lose out when all of their companies become more efficient and new companies are built because it becomes easier to build software with small teams, I will be very surprised.

so AI can actually replace software engineers? It's relatively unusual to see someone who "believes in AI", but is "anti-AI", at least among the HN crowd.

Also, I find this view very selfish. Yes, let's gatekeep a ground-breaking technology because it will hurt my specific profession. That's literally what technological progress is- it always (at least temporarily) disadvantages a particular sector of workers that specialized in that skill for the benefit of society. It's just funny because usually it's the blue collar workers who have to worry about this and the white collar workers who sanctimoniously tell them to suck it up or learn to code.

Also, I can't help but chuckle slightly at the irony here. The entire purpose of software engineering and computers is automation, and the lost jobs in other sectors due to SWEs is massive. To spend one's entire life in pursuit of this and be morally opposed to the "ultimate" automation (automating this process of automation itself) is a bit rich.

This is a more honest comment than the many around it making overly intellectualized arguments.

But I would sooner compare this engineer class to something of a small bourgeoisie swallowed by a yet larger one, especially in the United States.

The personification of the quote “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should”

I feel the existential problem for a world that follows the religion of science and technology to its extreme, is that most people in STEM have no foundation in humanities, so ethical and philosophical concerns never pass through their mind.

We have signed a pact with the devil to help us through boring tasks, and no one thought to ask what we would give in exchange.

I find it fascinating how the “true believers” of AI and AGI, have essentially been manipulated by capitalists to undermine the value of their own labor.

Based comment

The bloodless pragmatists aided and abetted them. Those who have no apparent values. Only short-term, terminally idiotic obsession with building things, creating value, creating business value, or whatever the pragmatist posturing of the day is.

Now they can have the fruits of their labor. Nothing. But why would they even want that? It’s not about getting something out of it. Or maintaining a living. It’s about building things.

Money. It's always money. It was always money.

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