An "elephant in the room" is a big topic that no one is talking about. Everyone is talking about AI.
Better headline: "Why AI Multiplies Developer Skills Rather Than Replacing Them"
An "elephant in the room" is a big topic that no one is talking about. Everyone is talking about AI.
Better headline: "Why AI Multiplies Developer Skills Rather Than Replacing Them"
For context, this was a newsletter issue sent as part of a marketing campaign for my latest course. It was an elephant in the room in the sense that up until that point, my marketing campaign hadn't talked about AI.
This is the "view on web" link designed for people to read my emails if they don't display correctly in their email client . It’s not really intended for a broader audience.
The outcome is the same, though
Fewer developers required to achieve the same things means a lot of people are going to be unemployed
It also means that the people who remain will likely be paid less. Why would you pay a senior salary when you could pay a junior salary plus AI subscription and get "the same result"?
I think Software Devs are in for a rough time. I've been doing this for 15 years now, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm honestly thinking about re-skilling to a different industry. Even if it pays less, it's probably worth it to sit out this shitshow.
> Fewer developers required to achieve the same things means a lot of people are going to be unemployed
I don’t think that's a foregone conclusion. Every company I’ve worked for has had a huge list of tasks we'd do if we had more engineering resources. There's never been a shortage of worthwhile things we could do, it's always been ruthless prioritization to find the 10% of tasks that are the most important.
Look up Jevons' Paradox. This is a thing that has happened a bunch of times before.
I agree with most of your take, but I don't really think those left are going to be paid less. I am not one of them, but I don't see why they would be paid less.
Simple economics. There are fewer software developers required to achieve the same goals, so there are fewer jobs for software developers. That means there's an oversupply of software development labor. That means salaries for software developers will go down
It's the same thing that happened to every other skilled profession that was automated in the past. That's why unions became a thing and they started busting heads until their employers paid them more.
Edit: the only way I can see software developer salaries staying the same is if the amount of work available for them expands dramatically.
Hypothetically if half of software developers are laid off and replaced by AI, there will need to be twice as many software development jobs in order for salaries to not go down
Also keep in mind that even if salaries remain flat, inflation means you're making less.