I was told AI makes people more productive so the costs should easily pay for themselves in the form of more revenue.
So what can you do?
Buy as many hot dogs as you can. Buy stock in hot dog companies.
My entire team, very competent hot dog experts, was laid off after a hot dog cooking machine could do what took us 3 months, in just one day. I've been out of a job for 12 months. The reason? All hot dog making has been offloaded to Claudog Hotdog. "Sorry. Hot dog manual cooking is a thing of the past", one recruiter told me.
I'm working as a software engineer as we speak. I keep applying to hot dog related positions but I get no interviews. Even positions significantly below my pay grade and skillset. No one is hiring. Hot dog cooking is over. We are entering a new era.
Well, there’s your problem. Get back to making the hotdogs!
We are afraid to release it to the public! And thus we are shutting down the company. We don't want humans polluting Moon and the atmosphere and space!
If it low, and lower prices won’t generate much new demand, we should expect AI to improve engineering productivity, and for companies to reduce staff.
If it is high, then we should see companies hire more engineers, increase output and lower prices (and earn more).
Companies try to manage it via CI/CD, outsourcing and internal competition, but no, companies can't magically reduce staff. They can, however, inject fear, which is good for reducing overt bureaucratic games, but actually increases covert bureaucracy and reduces knowledge-sharing, making the problem worse.
Only when incentives are aligned - when developers have an (equity) stake in growing the company - can the culture be open and efficient.
NP-hard