SWEs (SoftWare Engineers) will be much more productive, and new people will be able to come into the field post-GPT-4. That will open many opportunities for pe

SWEs (SoftWare Engineers) will be much more productive, and new people will be able to come into the field post-GPT-4. That will open many opportunities for people to do things they always wanted to do, but did not have the time to do before. This is a golden age in some ways. Big software companies will have to decide between taking more projects or cutting staff. I think many people expect them to cut staff. I expect them to take on more projects. Entirely new SWE Management / Project Management methodologies will develop as currently less qualified SWEs learn quickly using AIs and become much more productive using AIs. I remember legends about companies encouraging engineers to spend a few days a week on their own projects. If I were running a SWE company, I would (1) encourage everyone to share efficiency hacks that involve AI, and (2) encourage everyone to spend a few hours a week on their own projects. In the medium term, I would not lay off people; I would assign them to new projects. But I'm crazy. I though the Internet was a fad and that we'd all be back to BBSes in 6 months.