Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

journalingfilesystem t1_jecoua6 wrote

Here are my two cents. In a sense it has already begun. We have seen massive tech layoffs recently. There are other factors to account for that, but the idea that fewer coders with AI tools can be more effective then more coders without them probably is a factor that companies are taking into account.

From my own experience, institutions have a good deal of inertia. It takes time and resources to change the way that a company does things. People stick with what they are used to as long as it works, even in the presence of newer more efficient options. If a new option is a big enough improvement people will switch, but it won’t be an instant process.

Add to this all the technologies that have been hyped up as the next great thing, and have turned out to either go nowhere or have proved to have been much less revolutionary than promised. Hype cycle is something that experienced decision makers have learned to largely ignore.

Basically I think that what is going to happen is that the AI tech will continue to advance at a rapid pace. Then a few nimble and forward thinking companies will start using it in a major way. It will then take a few quarters of financial reports for most other companies to realize that this is the real deal. Only then will we start seeing really dramatic changes to the job market.

33

mutantbeings t1_jeddwg1 wrote

I'm pretty close to those tech layoffs — half my social circle works for a couple of tech companies and been on the chopping block — and those have absolutely nothing to do with AI. I promise you. Its greedy shareholders getting nervous when they see other companies downsizing and then deciding to literally copy them out of fear that the other companies know something they don't. That's prettymuch it. No secret AI conspiracy, I can promise you that. Its horrible and disgusting but nothing about it is tied to AI.

AI isn't a thing that is talked about very seriously in those tech teams; its not making any sort of serious entry into the industry yet that I can see — check tech subreddits and they're not concerned about it yet. There's a clear reason why — "No code" tools have actually existed for decades already — and AI is competing with those, not with developer jobs. In short: this threat has been made against our jobs for about 2-3 decades already and never actually replaced many jobs.

>the idea that fewer coders with AI tools can be more effective then more coders without them probably is a factor that companies are taking into account.

I'm a coder and the sorts of tools you're talking about aren't really making any sort of entry into our industry yet. Closest to that is probably Github Copilot and that's not exactly replacing developers at any noticeable scale.

Its going to replace a lot of our basic tasks very soon when it gets a tighter integration with our tooling as you say. I am excited about that and welcome it. I think the conclusion that everyone then draws — that its going to upend the industry by replacing most developer jobs — is a huge huge huge leap of faith tbqh.

I personally believe that AI has just as much potential to CREATE dev jobs because if AI can make us more productive all that will change is that we will build better more secure software. And more side projects will actually get built — which those companies can sell. I think people outside our industry don't seem to realise any code project has a nearly infinite backlog and if we can chew through tasks in that pipeline more efficiently then that is only going to make us MORE attractive hires for companies — rather than cutting jobs I think companies will see more reason to hire more of us since we will be that much more productive and delivering value. Those who assume it will replace us I think don't really understand software development and the fact that its never really "done".

15

Louheatar t1_jedjx7p wrote

i can also share some insight from a tech startup i worked in until a week ago, no layoffs yet. there was a lot of fear in the air, but in general, everyone, including the leadership, the developers, and the artists, generally lived in a state of serious denialism. they literally keep just laughing about whatever ai tools are popping out, sharing whatever buggy and weird gifs they find (instead of the actually great material the tools can produce), trying to somehow maintain their old world view i guess.

while (generative) ai poses a fundamental business risk for the company and most of the jobs, there was absolutely no deep conversations about it. nobody is taking it seriously, because they don't want to. instead of accepting and adapting, they're doubling down on their obviously wrong path and burning everyone out while doing it.

4