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Right, whats happening here is the first sales pitch to CEOs: "AI will let you fire everyone" is not panning out (duh)... so for the next trick, "AI will at lea

Right, whats happening here is the first sales pitch to CEOs: "AI will let you fire everyone" is not panning out (duh)... so for the next trick, "AI will at least let you pay them less" is a natural pivot. Both are absurd. Just let the hypecycle die off in peace already. We've seen this play out in history multiple times, already, so it's pretty ignorant to ignore the evidence. Carpenters aren't being paid less because we have framing nailguns and pre-fabricated trusses. Instead their skillset had to evolve. In fact, smaller crews can do larger projects... which doesn't mean fire your crewmembers, it means a builder company can take on more projects in parallel, leading to bigger profits through volume. "AI"s are useful tools. The skills in a post-AI world are different. Lower wages will be experienced by people that can't evolve, that's all.

Karupan 2mo ago
> Just let the hypecycle die off in peace already. I so wish that would happen so we can all find a more sustainable middle ground, but the trillion or so dumped into it says otherwise.
486sx33 2mo ago
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Madmallard 2mo ago
it's not really comparable IMO Eventually AI will be able to just bootstrap solid security, payment, accounts, DB management, backups, customer support services that automatically link to the correct department or sub-system I think the environment and landscape will change and different skills will be more valuable for developers But I think the existing skill-sets developers use can mostly be automated away If you were really good at your job as a contract software engineer in the past, you would basically just automate yourself out of a job and have to find a new one anyway. This just accelerates it.
- locknitpicker 2mo ago
  > Eventually AI will be able to just bootstrap solid security, payment, accounts, DB management, backups, customer support services that automatically link to the correct department or sub-system You are describing a templating system. It's useful to create projects from scratch, but that's not what software engineers do 99% of the time. What software engineers do 99% of the time is modifying existing services to adapt to changing requirements that more often than not are grossly unspecified. Also, a key part of a software engineer's work is serve as a point of contact with non software engineers to discuss what services do and plan work. > If you were really good at your job as a contract software engineer in the past, you would basically just automate yourself out of a job and have to find a new one anyway. This just accelerates it. I don't think this assumption holds water. At most your efficiency improved as short contracts to patch random customer projects now can meet the definition of done (maintenance be damned) in shorter iterations. However, ironically we are also seeing the occurrence of consultancy firms specialized in providing software engineering services as contract engineers that are explicitly marketed as solutions to problems introduced by vibe-coding.
kabes 2mo ago
AI is no longer the nail gun, that was auto complete with gpt 3.5. now it's like you say: "Build me a new roof" and an hour later it has materialized somehow. Not sure many carpenters would survive this.

Karupan 2mo ago

> Just let the hypecycle die off in peace already. I so wish that would happen so we can all find a more sustainable middle ground, but the trillion or so dumped into it says otherwise.

486sx33 2mo ago

[dead]

Madmallard 2mo ago

it's not really comparable IMO Eventually AI will be able to just bootstrap solid security, payment, accounts, DB management, backups, customer support services that automatically link to the correct department or sub-system I think the environment and landscape will change and different skills will be more valuable for developers But I think the existing skill-sets developers use can mostly be automated away If you were really good at your job as a contract software engineer in the past, you would basically just automate yourself out of a job and have to find a new one anyway. This just accelerates it.

locknitpicker 2mo ago
> Eventually AI will be able to just bootstrap solid security, payment, accounts, DB management, backups, customer support services that automatically link to the correct department or sub-system You are describing a templating system. It's useful to create projects from scratch, but that's not what software engineers do 99% of the time. What software engineers do 99% of the time is modifying existing services to adapt to changing requirements that more often than not are grossly unspecified. Also, a key part of a software engineer's work is serve as a point of contact with non software engineers to discuss what services do and plan work. > If you were really good at your job as a contract software engineer in the past, you would basically just automate yourself out of a job and have to find a new one anyway. This just accelerates it. I don't think this assumption holds water. At most your efficiency improved as short contracts to patch random customer projects now can meet the definition of done (maintenance be damned) in shorter iterations. However, ironically we are also seeing the occurrence of consultancy firms specialized in providing software engineering services as contract engineers that are explicitly marketed as solutions to problems introduced by vibe-coding.

kabes 2mo ago

AI is no longer the nail gun, that was auto complete with gpt 3.5. now it's like you say: "Build me a new roof" and an hour later it has materialized somehow. Not sure many carpenters would survive this.