They won't. In a year or two these will be articles that get linked back to similar to "Is the internet just a fad?" articles of the late 90s.
The issue is that LLMs don't "understand." They merely copy without contributing original thought or critical thinking. This is why LLMs can't handle complicated concepts in codebases.
What I think we'll see in the long run is:
(Short term) Newer programming models that target LLMs: IE, describe what you want the computer to do in plain English, and then the LLM will allow users to interact with the program in a more conversational manner. Edit: These will work in "high tolerance" situations where small amounts of error is okay. (Think analog vs digital, where analog systems tend to tolerate error more gracefully than digital systems.)
(Long term) Newer forms of AI that "understand." These will be able to handle complicated programs that LLMs can't handle today, because they have critical thinking and original thought.
“The Internet? Bah! Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn't, and will never be, nirvana” by Clifford Stoll (1995)
Excerpt: “How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.”
https://www.nysaflt.org/workshops/colt/2010/The%20Internet.p...
“Why most economists' predictions are wrong” by Paul Krugman (1998)
Excerpt: “By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.”
https://web.archive.org/web/19980610100009/http://www.redher...
The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.
As the rate of technological change in computing slows, the number of jobs for IT specialists will decelerate, then actually turn down; ten years from now, the phrase information economy will sound silly.
There is certainly real market penetration with LLMs. However, there is a huge gap between fantasy and reality - as in what is being promised vs what is being delivered and the effects on the economy are yet to play out.
Less than a year ago I was generated somewhat silly and broken unit tests with copilot. Now I'm generating entire feature sets while doing loads of laundry.
> But those of us who’ve experimented a lot with using LLMs for code generation and modification know that there will be times when the tool just won’t be able to do it.
The pace of change here--the new normal pace--has the potential to make this look outdated in mere months, and finding that the curve topped out exactly in late 2025, such that this remains the state of development for many years, seems intuitively very unlikely.
The last percentage point for something to get just right are the hardest, why are you so sure that the flaws in LLMs will be gone in such a short time frame?