Seriously? I can't speak for that 74%, but personally, I'm not worried. AI is not that smart, and my job is not that dumb. And I'm just a garden variety (non-AI-specialising) Python back-end dev.
How about the rest of y'all? Are you worried or are you meh?
I wouldn't be shocked if AI got so good that in 10 years my company of 200 or so can't compete with 6 AI-enabled tweens. But if that actually happens then it's a whole new world governed by radically different economics. There's no use taking anxieties built for this world and projecting them into a future they don't fit with.
Am I worried that my job will be replaced by AI tools? On one hand, I know that ChatGPT can’t replace me. On the other hand, companies seem seldom run by logic and empirical data these days.
I’m worried that companies will attempt to replace SWEs with AI tools (even if it’s just halving the SWE department and saying “use ChatGPT to pick up the slack”).
Offshoring comes in and out of fashion, but when it’s in fashion, it seems to take years before companies realize their mistake.
Yeah, this is the real worry. The vast majority of the decision-making people in business are not at all trying to actually decide what is good for the business, they are trying to decide what is good for themselves.
As such it's not "can we effectively and efficiently fire people and replace them with robots and expect the business to continue to exist in a year". Instead it's more like "Can I get a bonus next quarter if I cut costs this quarter?".
People who are sitting around very rationally trying to discuss how much AI is improving or how fast are missing the point I'd say. Powerful people don't think in those kind of terms as far as the ground truth of things. Usually they are more interested in controlling the conversation and seizing initiative. They are happy to blow up the companies / countries / industries they operate in and depend on, because they can always find a way to profit from the chaos.
Another part of the equation are apps like Robinhood that have opened the floodgates and enabled the lower and middle classes to invest in the stock market (however recklessly). When you consider the stock market is just one big Ponzi scheme (the newcomers support the old-timers with fresh capital and enable them to retire) you see it as less of a "no-brainer, guaranteed road to wealth" and more of the hunting ground that it really is- where the 1% steal from the rest of us using "tools" like market volatility to scare people into selling at a loss.
Fun fact: Robinhood now offers IRAs, and allows you to TRADE OPTIONS with your IRA. This should 1000% be illegal.
When something is sold as a magic tool that a decision maker is able to not be directly exposed to, they can go and trust the hype. Low-code/No-code were magic tools to make line workers into software Devs.
With LLM's and "AI all the things" being put in front of everyone's faces even decision makers are exposed to the wrinkles and can draw on their own experience of "would I hire Gemini or Co=pilot, the thing that struggles to follow seemingly simple instructions, to run my business" you start getting more speculation into the mystical powers of this human replacement machine.
With an opinion on AI being useful for low-risk activities but needing heavy supervision for stuff that matters, the calculous changes when considering handing that system the responsibility to deliver your paycheck.
If one of the idiots in my reporting line decides AI should be mandated (e.g. Shopify dunce), that's the end for me. I have no interest in being spoonfed by a chatbot and being accountable for it.
There is of course a difference in where the remoteness comes from though: is it because the talent is that much in demand that it can just require it?
Or is it because your employer is so cheap, he rather offshores the job to some emerging market, irrespective of the slop[1] he gets?
[1] why EM code might be slop is another topic in itself but let’s just say: Good ppl from EMs don’t need to slave through slopshops