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Comment by prmph | Hacker News Reader

I’ll believe the models can take the jobs of programmers when they can generate a sophisticated iOS app based on some simple prompts, ready for building and publication in the app store. That is nowhere near the horizon no matter how much things are hyped up, and it may well never arrive.

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Nah, it will arrive. And regardless, this sort of AI reduces the skill level required to make the app. It reduces the amount of people required and thus reduces the demand for engineers. So, even though AI is not CLOSE to what you are suggesting, it can significantly reduce the salaries of those that ARE required. So maybe fewer $150K programmers will be hired with the same revenue for even higher profits.

The most bizarre thing is that programmers are literally writing code to replace themselves because once this AI started, it was a race to the bottom and nobody wants to be last.

> Nah, it will arrive

Will it?

It's already hard to get people to use computer as they are right now, where you only need to click on things and no longer have to enter commands. That because most people don't like to engage in formal reasoning. Even with one of the most intuitive computer assisted task (drawing and 3d modeling), there's so much to learn regarding theories that few people bother.

Programming has always been easy to learn, and tools to automate coding have existed for decades now. But how many people you know have had the urge to learn enough to automate their tasks?

They've been promising us this thing since the 60s: End-user development, 5GLs, etc. enabling the average Joe to develop sophisticated apps in minimal time. And it never arrives.

I remember attending a tech fair decades ago, and at one stand they were vending some database products. When I mentioned that I was studying computer science with a focus on software engineering, they sneered that coding will be much less important in the future since powerful databases will minimize the need for a lot of data wrangling in applications with algorithms.

What actually happened is that the demand for programmers increased, and software ate the world. I suspect something similar will happen the current AI hype.

Well, I think in the 60s we also didn't have LLMs that could actually write complete programs, either.

No one writes a "complete program" these days. Things just keep evolving forever. I spent way too much time I care to admit dealing with dependencies of libraries which change seemingly on a daily basis these days. These predictions are so far off reality it makes me wonder if the people making them have ever written any code in their life.

That's fair. Well, I've written a lot of code. But anyway, I do want to emphasize the following. I am not making the same prediction as some that say AI can replace a programmer. Instead, I am saying: combination of AI plus programmers will reduce the need for the number or programmers, and hence allow the software industry to exist with far fewer people, with the lucky ones accumulating even more wealth.

> They've been promising us this thing since the 60s: End-user development, 5GLs, etc. enabling the average Joe to develop sophisticated apps in minimal time. And it never arrives.

This has literally already arrived. Average Joes are writing software using LLMs right now.

Source? Which software products are built without engineers?

Personal websites etc, you don't think about them as software products since they weren't built by engineers, but 30 years ago you needed engineers to build those things.

Ok, well I’m not going to worry about my job then. 25 years ago GeoCities existed and you didn’t need an engineer. 10 year old me was writing functional HTML, definitely not an engineer at that point.

To be honest maybe no one should worry.

If AI truly overtakes knowledge work there’s not much we could reasonably do to prepare for it.

If AI never gets there though, then you saved yourself the trouble of stressing about it. So sure, relax, it’s just the second coming of GeoCities.

I think the fear comes from the span of time. If my job is obsolete at the same time as everybody else's, I wouldn't care. I mean, sure, the world is in for a very tough time, but I would be in good company.

The really bad situation is if my entire skill set is made obsolete while the rest of the world keeps going for a decade or two. Or maybe longer, who knows.

I realize I'm coming across quite selfish, but it's just a feeling.

The absolutist type comments are such a wild take given how often they are so wrong.

Totally... simple increases in 20% efficiency will already significant destroy demand for coders. This forum however will be resistant to admit such economic phenomenon.

Look at video bay editing after the advent of Final Cut. Significant drop in the specialized requirement as a professional field, even while content volume went up dramatically.

Computing has been transforming countless jobs before it got to Final Cut. On one hand, programming is not the hardest job out there. On the other, it takes months to fully onboard a human developer - a person that already has years of relevant education and work experience. There are desk jobs that onboard new hires in days instead. Let’s see when they’re displaced by AI first.

Don't know if you noticed but thats already happening. Mass layoffs in customer service etc have already happened over the last 2 years

So, how does it work out? Are the customers happy? Are the bosses at my work going to be equally happy with my AI replacement?

That's until AI has improved enough that it can automatically navigate the menus to get me a human operator to talk to.

I could be misreading this, but as far as I can tell, there are more video and film editors today (29,240) than there were film editors in 1997 (9,320). Seems like an example of improved productivity shifting the skills required but ultimately driving greater demand for the profession as a whole. Salaries don't seem to have been hurt either, median wage was $35,214 in '97 and $66,600 today, right in line with inflation.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes274032.htm

https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm

This is the type of “I looked it up but know shit about the industry”.

Video demand exploded and professional editors collapsed in ratio.

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