Why I'm ignoring the "Death of the Programmer" hype | Hacker News Reader

Why I'm ignoring the "Death of the Programmer" hype

codingismycraft.blog

5 pointsbirdculture5 comments

Consider the bias. The people who do imagine the death of the programmer are not people who have ever written a software application. It’s like calling for the death of the novel, and yet there are still people reading and writing books. It’s also like the death of the accountant, or the medical doctor. I don’t see MedMD eliminating the physician.

I do eventually see jobs eliminated though, why bother with React developers if AI can already write React/JSX better? It’s like any other form of industrialization. It’s the low skill/administrative jobs that are eliminated, like the many jobs eliminated by the photocopier in the 50s.

Do AI really write better React/JSX than devs?

Yes, and it’s almost instantaneous. You just have to check that the output achieves the prompt.

This is why some people are concerned and some have nothing to worry about. A machine can replace a street sweeper, because pushing a broom is a low skill task. The kinds of people that design or drive street sweeping machines are not the people replaced.

Then why is there a need for a developer, that supposedly writes poorer code, to check it?

The _actual_ threat to the programmer as a career has little to do with AI and a lot to do with the looming decline in global growth which will continue to destroy opportunities for devs to thrive.

To frame this in terms of falsifiable-ish predictions as the article requests (won't add numbers cause I don't have time to research).

- Dev productivity will improve with AI, but there will be fewer programming jobs because there will just be lower growth overall with the coming debt-overhang slowdown.

- The fraction of un/under-employed programmers as a percentage of total devs will continue to increase. We're at an all time high for number of devs worldwide and this will continue until the economy structurally re-adjusts.

- Employment in the sector will see even more "insider" vs "outsider" dynamics with a resurgence in the relative value of connections and seniority.

FWIW none of these are novel, just aggregated

Investors and markets have regularly rewarded layoffs and will continue to do so as growth stories become fewer and further between. AI (incredible though it is as a tool) is just the fig-leaf/cover for this transition to be framed as a growth and efficiency story that ennobles insiders even further. The implication will be that some devs are just more skilled at using these new tools/being insightful about business and therefore their continued employment is justified while the outsiders are just unskilled. While this will be true for a small percentage (as it is now!), it will be really mostly be access/restrictive guild dynamics at play driving the shift.

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