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Think the marginal cost of developing complex software goes down thereby making it affordable to a greater market. There will still be a need for skilled softwa

Think the marginal cost of developing complex software goes down thereby making it affordable to a greater market. There will still be a need for skilled software engineers to understand domains, limitations of AI, and how to harness and curate AI to develop custom apps. Maybe software engineering for the masses. Local small businesses can now maybe afford to take on custom software projects that were before unthinkable.

the_af 2y ago
> There will still be a need for skilled software engineers to understand domains, limitations of AI, and how to harness and curate AI to develop custom apps. But will there be a need for fewer engineers, though? That's the question. And the competition for those who remain employed would be fierce, way worse than today. Or so I fear. I hope I'm wrong.
- btilly 2y ago
  Jevon's Paradox says that you're probably wrong. But I'm worried about the same thing. The moat around human superiority is shrinking fast. And when it's gone, we may get more software, but will we need humans involved?
  - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
    this is a better world. we can work a few hours a week and play tennis, golf, and argue politics with our friends and family over some good cheese and wine while the bots do the deployments.
    - the_af 2y ago
      Assuming you retain a good paying job and are not treated like a disposable commodity. That cheese and wine is not going to be free.
      - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
        as long as we keep learning and our heads in the game we will be fine. I worry much more for the non-techno savy like scrum masters. yikes.
    - hgomersall 2y ago
      We're already there in terms of productivity. The problem is the inordinate number of people doing nothing useful yet extracting huge amounts. Think most of finance for example.
      - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
        oh. yeah. finance is to big. they've captured the government.
  - svara 2y ago
    AI doesn't have needs any desires, humans do. And no matter how hyped one might be about AI, we're far away from creating an artificial human. As long as that's true, AI is a tool to make humans more effective.
    - boothby 2y ago
      > AI doesn't have needs any desires, humans do. I fear that this won't age well. But to shamelessly riff on Marx, those who control the means of computation will control society.
      - visarga 2y ago
        In the AI age, those who own the problems stand to own the AI benefits. Utility is in the application layer, not the hosting or development of AI models.
      - svara 2y ago
        I agree the latter part is a risk to consider, but I really think getting an AI to replace human jobs on a vast scale will take much more than just training a bit more. You need to train on a fundamentally different task, which is to be good at the adversarial game of pursuing one's needs and desires in a social environment. And that doesn't yet take into account that the interface to our lives is largely physical, we need bodies. I'm seeing us on track to AGI in the sense of building a universal question answering machine, a system that will be able to answer any unambiguously stated question if given enough time and energy. Stating questions unambiguously gets pretty difficult fast even where it's possible, often it isn't even possible, and getting those answers is just a small part of being a successful human. PS: Needs and desires are totally orthogonal to AI/AGI. Every animal has them, but many animals don't have high intelligence. Needs and desires are a consequence of our evolutionary history, not our intelligence. AGI does not need to mean an artificial human. Whether to pursue or not pursue that research program is up to us, it's not inevitable.
        the_af 2y ago
        To be clear, I'm not arguing humans will stop being involved in software engineering completely. What I fear is that the pool of employable humans (as code reviewers, prompt engineers and high-level "solution architects") will shrink, because fewer will be needed, and that this will cause ripples in our industry and affect employment. We know this isn't far-fetched. We have strong evidence to suspect during the big layoffs of a couple of years ago, FAANG and startups all colluded to lower engineer salaries across the board, and that their excuse ("the economy is shrinking") was flimsy at best. Now AI presents them with another powerful tool to reduce salaries even more, with a side dish of reducing the size of the cost center that is programmers and engineers.
  - kelipso 2y ago
    Can’t be sure though, there used to be way more accountants decades ago.
- andrei_says_ 2y ago
  I think it might be useful to look at this as multiple forces to play. One force is a multiplier of a software engineer’s productivity. Another force is the pressure of the expectation for constant, unlimited increase in profits. This pressure force the CEOs and managers to look for cheaper alternatives to expensive software engineers, ultimately to eliminate the position and expense. The lie that this is a possibility draws huge investments. And another force is the infinite number of applications of software, especially well designed, truly useful, software.
  - the_af 2y ago
    Yes, these are good considerations. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't admit I use AI daily in my job, and it's indeed a multiplier of my productivity. The tech is really cool and getting better. I also understand AI is one step closer for the everyday Jane or Joe Doe to do cool and useful stuff which was out of reach before. What worries me is the capitalist, business-side forces at play, and what they will mean for my job security. Is it selfish? You bet! But if I don't advocate for me, who will?
- bubbleRefuge 2y ago
  no I think more engineers. especially those who can be a jack-of-all-trades. if a software project that takes normally 1 year of customer development can be done in 2 months, then that project is affordable to a wide array of business who would could never fund that kind of project before.
  - the_af 2y ago
    I can see more projects being deployed by smaller businesses, that would otherwise not be able to. But how will this translate to engineering jobs? Maybe there will be AI tools to automate most of the stuff a small business needs done. "Ah," you may say, "I will build those tools!". Ok. Maybe. How many engineers do you need for that? Will the current engineering job market shrink or expand, and how many non-trash, well paid jobs will there be? I'm not saying I know for sure how it'll go, but I'm concerned.
    - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
      would be similar to solution engineers today. you build solutions using ai. think about all the moving parts to building a complex business app. user experience, data storage, business logic, reporting, etc. etc. the engineer can orchestrate the ai to build the solution and validate its correctness.
      - the_af 2y ago
        I fear even this role will need way fewer people, meaning the employment pool will heavily shrink, and those competing for a job will need to accept lower paychecks.
        bubbleRefuge 2y ago
        like someone said above. demand is infinite. imagine a world where the local AI/Engineer tech is a ubiquitous as the uber driver. don't think it will necessarily create smaller paychecks. hard to say. But I see demand skyrocketing for customized software that can be provided at 1/10 of today's costs. We are far away from that though. As an enterprise software/data engineer, AI has been great in answering questions and generating tactical code for me. Hours have turned into minutes. It even motivated me to work on side projects because they take less time. You will be fine. Embrace the change. Its good for you. Will lead to personal growth.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  Did the introduction of assemblers lead to creating more or fewer programming jobs?
  - the_af 2y ago
    I get this argument, but it feels we cannot always reason by analogy. Some jumps are qualitatively different. We cannot always claim "this didn't happen before, therefore it won't happen now". Of course assemblers didn't create fewer programming jobs, nor did compilers or high level languages. However, with "NO CODE" solutions (remember that fad?) there was an attempt at reducing the need for programmers (though not completely taking them out of the equation)... it's just that NO CODE wasn't good enough. What if AI is good enough?
- weatherlite 2y ago
  If it's any consolation, if indeed the extra productivity happens, and kills the number of SWE jobs I don't see why this dynamic shouldn't happen in almost all white collar job across the private sector (government sectors are pretty much protected no matter what happens). There'll be a decreasing demand for lawyers, accountants, analysts, secretaries, HR personnel, designers, marketers etc etc. Even doctors might start feeling this eventually.
Vampiero 2y ago
In what AI-powered world do you think that local small software businesses will survive?
- simonw 2y ago
  One where other businesses need help figuring out how to use AI for their own businesses. It doesn't matter how "easy" technology gets to use, there will always be a market for helping other people figure out best to apply it.

the_af 2y ago

> There will still be a need for skilled software engineers to understand domains, limitations of AI, and how to harness and curate AI to develop custom apps. But will there be a need for fewer engineers, though? That's the question. And the competition for those who remain employed would be fierce, way worse than today. Or so I fear. I hope I'm wrong.

btilly 2y ago
Jevon's Paradox says that you're probably wrong. But I'm worried about the same thing. The moat around human superiority is shrinking fast. And when it's gone, we may get more software, but will we need humans involved?
- bubbleRefuge 2y ago
  this is a better world. we can work a few hours a week and play tennis, golf, and argue politics with our friends and family over some good cheese and wine while the bots do the deployments.
  - the_af 2y ago
    Assuming you retain a good paying job and are not treated like a disposable commodity. That cheese and wine is not going to be free.
    - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
      as long as we keep learning and our heads in the game we will be fine. I worry much more for the non-techno savy like scrum masters. yikes.
  - hgomersall 2y ago
    We're already there in terms of productivity. The problem is the inordinate number of people doing nothing useful yet extracting huge amounts. Think most of finance for example.
    - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
      oh. yeah. finance is to big. they've captured the government.
- svara 2y ago
  AI doesn't have needs any desires, humans do. And no matter how hyped one might be about AI, we're far away from creating an artificial human. As long as that's true, AI is a tool to make humans more effective.
  - boothby 2y ago
    > AI doesn't have needs any desires, humans do. I fear that this won't age well. But to shamelessly riff on Marx, those who control the means of computation will control society.
    - visarga 2y ago
      In the AI age, those who own the problems stand to own the AI benefits. Utility is in the application layer, not the hosting or development of AI models.
    - svara 2y ago
      I agree the latter part is a risk to consider, but I really think getting an AI to replace human jobs on a vast scale will take much more than just training a bit more. You need to train on a fundamentally different task, which is to be good at the adversarial game of pursuing one's needs and desires in a social environment. And that doesn't yet take into account that the interface to our lives is largely physical, we need bodies. I'm seeing us on track to AGI in the sense of building a universal question answering machine, a system that will be able to answer any unambiguously stated question if given enough time and energy. Stating questions unambiguously gets pretty difficult fast even where it's possible, often it isn't even possible, and getting those answers is just a small part of being a successful human. PS: Needs and desires are totally orthogonal to AI/AGI. Every animal has them, but many animals don't have high intelligence. Needs and desires are a consequence of our evolutionary history, not our intelligence. AGI does not need to mean an artificial human. Whether to pursue or not pursue that research program is up to us, it's not inevitable.
      - the_af 2y ago
        To be clear, I'm not arguing humans will stop being involved in software engineering completely. What I fear is that the pool of employable humans (as code reviewers, prompt engineers and high-level "solution architects") will shrink, because fewer will be needed, and that this will cause ripples in our industry and affect employment. We know this isn't far-fetched. We have strong evidence to suspect during the big layoffs of a couple of years ago, FAANG and startups all colluded to lower engineer salaries across the board, and that their excuse ("the economy is shrinking") was flimsy at best. Now AI presents them with another powerful tool to reduce salaries even more, with a side dish of reducing the size of the cost center that is programmers and engineers.
- kelipso 2y ago
  Can’t be sure though, there used to be way more accountants decades ago.
andrei_says_ 2y ago
I think it might be useful to look at this as multiple forces to play. One force is a multiplier of a software engineer’s productivity. Another force is the pressure of the expectation for constant, unlimited increase in profits. This pressure force the CEOs and managers to look for cheaper alternatives to expensive software engineers, ultimately to eliminate the position and expense. The lie that this is a possibility draws huge investments. And another force is the infinite number of applications of software, especially well designed, truly useful, software.
- the_af 2y ago
  Yes, these are good considerations. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't admit I use AI daily in my job, and it's indeed a multiplier of my productivity. The tech is really cool and getting better. I also understand AI is one step closer for the everyday Jane or Joe Doe to do cool and useful stuff which was out of reach before. What worries me is the capitalist, business-side forces at play, and what they will mean for my job security. Is it selfish? You bet! But if I don't advocate for me, who will?
bubbleRefuge 2y ago
no I think more engineers. especially those who can be a jack-of-all-trades. if a software project that takes normally 1 year of customer development can be done in 2 months, then that project is affordable to a wide array of business who would could never fund that kind of project before.
- the_af 2y ago
  I can see more projects being deployed by smaller businesses, that would otherwise not be able to. But how will this translate to engineering jobs? Maybe there will be AI tools to automate most of the stuff a small business needs done. "Ah," you may say, "I will build those tools!". Ok. Maybe. How many engineers do you need for that? Will the current engineering job market shrink or expand, and how many non-trash, well paid jobs will there be? I'm not saying I know for sure how it'll go, but I'm concerned.
  - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
    would be similar to solution engineers today. you build solutions using ai. think about all the moving parts to building a complex business app. user experience, data storage, business logic, reporting, etc. etc. the engineer can orchestrate the ai to build the solution and validate its correctness.
    - the_af 2y ago
      I fear even this role will need way fewer people, meaning the employment pool will heavily shrink, and those competing for a job will need to accept lower paychecks.
      - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
        like someone said above. demand is infinite. imagine a world where the local AI/Engineer tech is a ubiquitous as the uber driver. don't think it will necessarily create smaller paychecks. hard to say. But I see demand skyrocketing for customized software that can be provided at 1/10 of today's costs. We are far away from that though. As an enterprise software/data engineer, AI has been great in answering questions and generating tactical code for me. Hours have turned into minutes. It even motivated me to work on side projects because they take less time. You will be fine. Embrace the change. Its good for you. Will lead to personal growth.
llm_trw 2y ago
Did the introduction of assemblers lead to creating more or fewer programming jobs?
- the_af 2y ago
  I get this argument, but it feels we cannot always reason by analogy. Some jumps are qualitatively different. We cannot always claim "this didn't happen before, therefore it won't happen now". Of course assemblers didn't create fewer programming jobs, nor did compilers or high level languages. However, with "NO CODE" solutions (remember that fad?) there was an attempt at reducing the need for programmers (though not completely taking them out of the equation)... it's just that NO CODE wasn't good enough. What if AI is good enough?
weatherlite 2y ago
If it's any consolation, if indeed the extra productivity happens, and kills the number of SWE jobs I don't see why this dynamic shouldn't happen in almost all white collar job across the private sector (government sectors are pretty much protected no matter what happens). There'll be a decreasing demand for lawyers, accountants, analysts, secretaries, HR personnel, designers, marketers etc etc. Even doctors might start feeling this eventually.

Vampiero 2y ago

In what AI-powered world do you think that local small software businesses will survive?

simonw 2y ago
One where other businesses need help figuring out how to use AI for their own businesses. It doesn't matter how "easy" technology gets to use, there will always be a market for helping other people figure out best to apply it.