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points by glimshe 1 day ago | 0 comments

I have a few acquaintances who smirked when I last met them: they love how AI saved them a ton of time in their non-tech jobs while pointing out that "they wouldn't want to be a software engineer today".

They were always a bit resentful about how I made money "so easily". And they were right in a sense. Before retiring I'd make more money browsing reddit in a boring meeting than they would make in a day.

We made incredible improvements to society but we also destroyed the livelihoods of millions. I believe our profession was/is a massive net positive to the world, but many got hurt while we steamrolled others without hesitation.

I'm actually very positive about AI in general and I don't think it will end our field. But if that's what happens, we can lament the bad luck but not really complain that we've been wronged.

[–] mjburgess 1 day ago

I'd say its more like the creation of power tools. Many people are now capable of DIY. Many cannot carve stone masonry. Many still work on construction sites. Many help people with their DIY and post-DIY disasters. Some still create ironwork and stone masonry.

Its not yet clear to me that blacksmith software engineers that quickly learn DIY tools, arent going to be in greater demand. Nor even, capable of commanding higher salaries. Perhaps fewer will exist, but they will transact with more end customers because their rate of production will increase -- and so, be richer still.

Its my view, incidentlly, that far fewer programmers ought exist. If you think about the last decade or two of the industry, and the rise of massive low-quality bootcamps -- imv we had an seng bubble. It isnt clear to me that we arent lower than a pre-bubble baseline.