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Comment by asdfologist | Hacker News Reader

If AI makes engineers more productive, then it follows that companies will hire fewer engineers for the same work. So AI is making some engineers obsolete.

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On the flipside, it might create more demand for some engineers (or skills in general) as the bottlenecks move "upward" on the skills ladder (if we define that ladder as "how hard is it for AI").

E.g., faster and cheaper compute created more demand for software developers as that demand was no longer capped by the compute bottlenecks. Similarly, faster and cheaper "basic" software development might create more demand for software architects, and so on.

High level languages have been making programmers more productive for decades. But that hasn't resulted in fewer programmers, but more programs.

> If AI makes engineers more productive, then it follows that companies will hire fewer engineers for the same work.

History says otherwise. When I started (late 90s I guess) we looked at starting a company. It was going to require things like big iron, rented DC space, teams of people to manage, for what was something that is now pretty simple. Fast forward and the same idea could be done (and has been done) by a couple people using a cheap VPS.

Every productivity enhancer that has happened over my career has not led to fewer jobs, but more. The ability for humanity to consume any excess resource is unmatched. I'm sure there will be some bumps along the way, but any company who thinks they can stay static and replace everyone with AI will get beat out by the companies using AI as a tool to continue to innovate.

> hire fewer engineers for the same work

or will take on more projects

Field is evolving for a long time, with more automation/frameworks which make programmers more productive. So far it increased workload and opportunities.

The real issue will happen if suddenly humans will be completely removed from the loop and AI will scale independently.

No, you're historically wrong.

If AI makes engineers more productive, then it follows that the application of engineering become economically viable on whole new sets of problems. So AI is making engineers even more sought after.

That said, I'm so unimpressed with AI at the moment that I start thinking it's just a bubble, but even if it isen't, it's not going to lessen the need for engieers in the least.

I don't see why these are mutually exclusive. The point is that those new "engineers" will not necessarily be the same people. Those "good" engineers will enjoy improved productivity and will be more sought after, while those "not so good" engineers will be replaced by AI. As always, any innovation just seems to increase inequality.

On the contrary, AI will _also_ create jobs for people who as of now would be unqualified for engineering.. People who have enough of the right type of thinking, but can't learn to code well enough to be productive, they can now be AI babysitters and integrators.

> then it follows that the application of engineering become economically viable on whole new sets of problems.

Agree.

The demand curve for highly skilled SWEs is incredibly robust but has been supply limited. Insofar as AI effectively upskills workers who were just below the demand cliff, this is a boon to workers.

The big shift I see is towards Quality. Implementation has gotten cheaper relative to problem specification and verification.

Many things have made engineers more productive in my working lifetime, yet there still more of these pesky software engineers than ever!

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