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I have literally seen dozens, if not hundreds of people claim here, on Reddit and LinkedIn things like "we have downsized our engineering team from 50 to 5 engi

I have literally seen dozens, if not hundreds of people claim here, on Reddit and LinkedIn things like "we have downsized our engineering team from 50 to 5 engineers", "I produce 5x the amount of code", etc. A few tech CEOs - both from frontier labs and traditional software companies - are also claiming software engineers are a thing of the past. I think these two audiences - tech CEOs and random anons on the internet - tend to be full of shit and I give very little credence to what they say, but to your point, some people are at least claiming things of the sort.

geraneum 1y ago
> from frontier labs The target market of these companies are software shops. You don’t see them advertising the model capabilities in i.e. Civil Engineering much. They are trying specifically to sell a cheaper replacement of software engineers to those CEOs. You have to read the news and announcements with this lens: A vacuum cleaner manufacturer claims that dirty dusty house is a thing of the past. Of course they say that.
- aerhardt 1y ago
  A similar thing could be said about traditional tech CEOs like Benioff - that it's part of their fiduciary duty to stakeholders to say things like that. I don't disagree with you; I'm merely saying it's the nature of the game, and that people are definitely claiming that there is an imminent (or even ongoing) firing of engineers.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    I don’t think you should let them off the hook with this fiduciary duty idea. If anything, they should be aware of what their company’s concrete plans are for firing off 90% of their engineers. If they are saying something like that, and it doesn’t happen… they are lying. There’s no duty to lie to everyone (including shareholders) for… their own good? (Not that I see how it would be for their own good).
  - geraneum 1y ago
    The funny thing is, the AI that is so good that it can replace 90% of developers, can probably replace the vast majority of software shops as well. What I guess will happen eventually, is that at some point AI (not the current one) will replace “software” in many areas. Why have Stripe when AI manages the transactions. Why have Airbnb when AI can both manage and rent properties. Why have Shopify, and so on and so forth. Letting AI build your app will look silly. Why even have an app? IMO that’s when the real/massive displacement will happen.

geraneum 1y ago

> from frontier labs The target market of these companies are software shops. You don’t see them advertising the model capabilities in i.e. Civil Engineering much. They are trying specifically to sell a cheaper replacement of software engineers to those CEOs. You have to read the news and announcements with this lens: A vacuum cleaner manufacturer claims that dirty dusty house is a thing of the past. Of course they say that.

aerhardt 1y ago
A similar thing could be said about traditional tech CEOs like Benioff - that it's part of their fiduciary duty to stakeholders to say things like that. I don't disagree with you; I'm merely saying it's the nature of the game, and that people are definitely claiming that there is an imminent (or even ongoing) firing of engineers.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  I don’t think you should let them off the hook with this fiduciary duty idea. If anything, they should be aware of what their company’s concrete plans are for firing off 90% of their engineers. If they are saying something like that, and it doesn’t happen… they are lying. There’s no duty to lie to everyone (including shareholders) for… their own good? (Not that I see how it would be for their own good).
- geraneum 1y ago
  The funny thing is, the AI that is so good that it can replace 90% of developers, can probably replace the vast majority of software shops as well. What I guess will happen eventually, is that at some point AI (not the current one) will replace “software” in many areas. Why have Stripe when AI manages the transactions. Why have Airbnb when AI can both manage and rent properties. Why have Shopify, and so on and so forth. Letting AI build your app will look silly. Why even have an app? IMO that’s when the real/massive displacement will happen.