Assuming that AI is helping developers to write more code, it could mean:
* there are fewer developers
* developers are working less
* the efficiency gains are resulting in more products being created rather than existing products being improved
* AI isn't widely enough adopted or used to make enough of a difference
* the benefits are too recent to be measured
the efficiency gains are resulting in more
products being created rather than existing
products being improved
If a tool makes my job 2x easier, then I'm simply expected to have 2x more output. Not 2x "better" output.
Software is easier than ever to write, but now the average AAA video game is 100+ GB and most popular software is browser-based.
This chart illustrates it better: https://x.com/feketegy/status/1809173358279311672/photo/1
I've found that for all but the smallest and tightest of teams, there definitely is a correlation... an inverse correlation.
Often the difference is between finishing within an order of magnitude of the predicted time versus not finishing at all. But the highest quality product is almost always finished first.
There are exceptions, and AFAIK, those are all for very small projects. In my experience, high-quality takes about a week to be paid back. So if you have something smaller that you'll throw away after a use, you may want to cut corners.
If you accept that premise the only conclusion left is that it has made developer's work much less but their bosses haven't noticed yet.
But you would still expect that some people are working for themselves and continue to work the same amount of hours so should be producing 10 apps a year instead of 1. Are there any examples of that?
Actual productivity takes time, and actual products take work. Talk is cheap, show me the code.
India have had massive layoffs in tech sector.
Europe and US will follow suit once companies layoff dead weight in outsourcing locations first.
Another aspect of quality is "polish". A team that can get a UI in front of QA twice in a development cycle instead of only once will benefit from more fault-finding.
I think the more likely outcome would either be it still taking the same time to deliver, with extra fluff in the middle, or the time simply shrinks. One thing is still evaluated and shipped, but slight faster.