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These kinds of articles are arguing against nothing. Anybody can see that AI can't really replace developers today (though it can certainly save you huge chunks

These kinds of articles are arguing against nothing. Anybody can see that AI can't really replace developers today (though it can certainly save you huge chunks of time in some situations). But what about in 5 years? 10 years? Things are changing rapidly and nobody knows what's going to happen. It's entirely possible that in 5 or 10 years at least some developers will be fully replaced. (And probably a lot of people in HR, finance, marketing, etc. too.)

bilbo0s 1y ago
If you're gonna give AI a decade of improvements, then I'll go ahead and bet on a whole lot of developers being replaced. Not just some developers being replaced. I think you hit on something with finance as well. Give Microsoft a decade of improving AI's understanding of Excel and I'm thinking a whole lot of business analyst types would be unnecessary. Today, in an organization of 25 or 50 thousand employees, you may have dozens to hundreds depending on the industry. Ten years from now? Well, let's just say no one is gonna willingly carry hundreds of business analysts salaries on their books while paying the Microsoft 365AI license anyway. Only the best of those analysts will remain. And not many of them.
- owebmaster 1y ago
  > Well, let's just say no one is gonna willingly carry hundreds of business analysts salaries on their books while paying the Microsoft 365AI license anyway. But also thousands of companies are going to be able to implement with a team of 1-10 people what before was only available to organizations of 25 or 50 thousand employees.
SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
Well, we're on year 3 of developers being out of jobs in 6 months. Maybe 5 or 10 years things will change, but at this point I can't see myself being replaced without some sort of paradigm shift, which is not what the current brand of AI improvements are offering - it seems like they are offering iterations of the same thing over and over, each generation slightly more refined or with more ability to generate output based upon its own output - so I see no reason to assume my job is in jeopardy just because it might be at some later date. Someone needs to tell me what exactly is going to change to cause this sudden shift in what AI can do, because right now I don't see it. It seems to have given people a licence to suggest science fiction be treated like a business plan.
- IshKebab 1y ago
  Nothing fundamental needs to change. It just needs to get smarter and more reliable. And don't think that because the crazy "everything will be AI in 6 months" predictions predictably haven't come to pass that that means it won't ever happen. I'm old enough to remember the failure of online clothes shopping in the dot-com era. Sometimes things just take a while.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    If you're old enough to remember dot-com you're old enough to remember when low code and WYSIWYG were both supposedly the death knell for developers. Sure it not yet happening doesn't mean it won't ever happen, but it also no evidence that it will. When the latest apocalypse cult fails to predict the end of the world does that make you more or less convinced that the world will end the next time someone yells it? The longer this future developer apocalypse is delayed the less credible it seems.
    - IshKebab 1y ago
      > low code and WYSIWYG were both supposedly the death knell for developers. I mean... hopefully it is really obvious why those are very different!
      - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
        The tech is different, sure, but they were all attempts to replace developers with business users by hiding the code. Hasn't worked so far because it turns out there's more to being a good developer than just code, but it's still what people try over and over.
        skydhash 1y ago
        Code is ossified design. The whole problem is coming up with the design and dealing with both essentials and accidental complexities. Writing the code is routine work. The only difference from other design works is that we often go back and forth as we can start coding as soon as we want. It's like how building an house is pretty much logistic and repetitive works. Designing an house is complex enough that you requires a degree and years of experience before you're trusted to do it well.
owebmaster 1y ago
> It's entirely possible that in 5 or 10 years at least some developers will be fully replaced. Some were entirely replaced already, like landing page developers. But the amount of AI/nocode developers is much bigger and growing fast so no dev roles were eliminated. That is just of more of the same in tech, keeping up with it.
- Izkata 1y ago
  Landing page developers were still a thing? I thought they were replaced decades ago with FrontPage and Dreamweaver. (only a bit /s)
lezojeda 1y ago
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bilbo0s 1y ago

If you're gonna give AI a decade of improvements, then I'll go ahead and bet on a whole lot of developers being replaced. Not just some developers being replaced. I think you hit on something with finance as well. Give Microsoft a decade of improving AI's understanding of Excel and I'm thinking a whole lot of business analyst types would be unnecessary. Today, in an organization of 25 or 50 thousand employees, you may have dozens to hundreds depending on the industry. Ten years from now? Well, let's just say no one is gonna willingly carry hundreds of business analysts salaries on their books while paying the Microsoft 365AI license anyway. Only the best of those analysts will remain. And not many of them.

owebmaster 1y ago
> Well, let's just say no one is gonna willingly carry hundreds of business analysts salaries on their books while paying the Microsoft 365AI license anyway. But also thousands of companies are going to be able to implement with a team of 1-10 people what before was only available to organizations of 25 or 50 thousand employees.

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago

Well, we're on year 3 of developers being out of jobs in 6 months. Maybe 5 or 10 years things will change, but at this point I can't see myself being replaced without some sort of paradigm shift, which is not what the current brand of AI improvements are offering - it seems like they are offering iterations of the same thing over and over, each generation slightly more refined or with more ability to generate output based upon its own output - so I see no reason to assume my job is in jeopardy just because it might be at some later date. Someone needs to tell me what exactly is going to change to cause this sudden shift in what AI can do, because right now I don't see it. It seems to have given people a licence to suggest science fiction be treated like a business plan.

IshKebab 1y ago
Nothing fundamental needs to change. It just needs to get smarter and more reliable. And don't think that because the crazy "everything will be AI in 6 months" predictions predictably haven't come to pass that that means it won't ever happen. I'm old enough to remember the failure of online clothes shopping in the dot-com era. Sometimes things just take a while.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  If you're old enough to remember dot-com you're old enough to remember when low code and WYSIWYG were both supposedly the death knell for developers. Sure it not yet happening doesn't mean it won't ever happen, but it also no evidence that it will. When the latest apocalypse cult fails to predict the end of the world does that make you more or less convinced that the world will end the next time someone yells it? The longer this future developer apocalypse is delayed the less credible it seems.
  - IshKebab 1y ago
    > low code and WYSIWYG were both supposedly the death knell for developers. I mean... hopefully it is really obvious why those are very different!
    - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
      The tech is different, sure, but they were all attempts to replace developers with business users by hiding the code. Hasn't worked so far because it turns out there's more to being a good developer than just code, but it's still what people try over and over.
      - skydhash 1y ago
        Code is ossified design. The whole problem is coming up with the design and dealing with both essentials and accidental complexities. Writing the code is routine work. The only difference from other design works is that we often go back and forth as we can start coding as soon as we want. It's like how building an house is pretty much logistic and repetitive works. Designing an house is complex enough that you requires a degree and years of experience before you're trusted to do it well.

owebmaster 1y ago

> It's entirely possible that in 5 or 10 years at least some developers will be fully replaced. Some were entirely replaced already, like landing page developers. But the amount of AI/nocode developers is much bigger and growing fast so no dev roles were eliminated. That is just of more of the same in tech, keeping up with it.

Izkata 1y ago
Landing page developers were still a thing? I thought they were replaced decades ago with FrontPage and Dreamweaver. (only a bit /s)

lezojeda 1y ago

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