That’s the same misconception about programming that people had decades ago. People thought the same thing when we introduced 5GLs back in the 1980s, and there was a lot of hype, and programming became more accessible, but demand for programmers increased rather than decreasing. People thought the same thing back when Fortran was introduced in the 1950s, and programming became more accessible, but the demand for programmers increased rather than decreasing.

The trick is that you need to hire someone to come up with a description of the problem which is precise enough that a computer can handle the rest. That person is the programmer.

If you’re being sarcastic, it’s not clear, just put a /s on the end or something.

If an AI is ever capable of replacing a human programmer it would also be capable of replacing a manager and running its own company.

So why would you even be in a position to hire anyone?

In fact why are you working at all? The robots are doing everything already. Just sit back and relax, enjoy the matrix.

Would you fire a brain surgeon if he's not willing to stop and provide a consult while he's operating? There's even robots who are equally as capable of surgery as AI are of software development.

The person who does not do any deep work probably gets automated away first. Doing simpler office tasks with a lot of context switching sounds like something for an LLM.

>why would I hire a programmer and pay them 200k a year when they cannot handle basic communication without becoming unproductive?

As entrepreneur myself, the main reason I pay someone 200K is because I can make this person generate more than 200k in profit.

The fact that someone have flaws, like any human being has, is an opportunity for me as I can make those flaws irrelevant by providing the environment where a team could be extra productive.

That means the team needs me and my company. If they were perfect on their own, they would not need me or my company at all and would be able to compete with my company.

If robots could one day do the work of programmers, they would be able to do the work of managers and entrepreneurs as well, which is way easier(I am engineer too).

>Are humans still necessary when robots are able to understand humans and become fluent ESLs?

Yes, they are.

Depends, can this fabled all-knowing robot also humor facetious comments on HN?

> we should quickly replace programmers with AI

Well, nobody is stopping you. Go try.

You won’t use AI to replace a programmer because you likely wouldn’t have any job left to do, meaning either your boss will replace you with AI or AI will replace your company altogether

> From a risk management perspective, why would I hire a programmer and pay them 200k a year when they cannot handle basic communication without becoming unproductive?

Do you actually hire programmers (people just transforming detailed spec into code) at 200K/y? Or do you hire Engineers for 200K + Stock to transform uncertain requirements and constraints into a working solution? If the former, you are overpaying a lot.

> Are humans still necessary when robots are able to understand humans and become fluent ESLs?

Does such a robot exists?

AI will happen anyways.