You're not getting replaced by AI. You're getting replaced by a coworker using AI. It doesn't matter how poorly AI performs at any remotely complicated task, what matters is how many developer-hours it saves by not having to manually write as much boilerplate.
Or someone would have been added to headcount to work on it
Every PM I’ve ever worked with had 10x more things they wanted to add than they had devs to add them.
You would likely lose absolutely nothing by throwing away most of it, and gain a lot.
If you believe that making developers 10% more productive results in a need for ~10% less developers, why didn't open source software over the past ~20 years harm our profession?
Working with open source packages from npm and PyPI has given me WAY more than a 10% boost - so much stuff I don't have to write from scratch now!
Because I suspect that comes with learning a lot less in the process and lower quality output.
You have to use them diligently, but it's definitely possible to avoid the obvious downsides of working in this way.
Because I suspect it depends a lot on skill level.
Because I have the same level of experience and to me, for my way of working, they're obviously mostly useless.
Very refreshing!
Maybe. Or maybe the industry will simply churn even more software due to increased possibilities and everything stays the same.
How long until people realise AI cannot take responsibility? Sure, that coworker can do 10% more coding. But can they handle 10% increase in mental workload to juggle all the hard problems? What about 20%? At what point do people start cracking?
Economies can grow and the output of economies can grow and thus the number of jobs can grow