I found this thought funny. A few years ago everyone was all learn to code so you don’t lose your job! Now there wont be any programming jobs in 10 years. But we will need a lot of manual labor still.
the only job that can’t be replaced is… venture capital guy
Remember when Biden told coal miners to learn to code
“My liberal friends were saying, ‘You can’t expect them to be able to do that,’” Biden told his New Hampshire audience. “Gimme a break! Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program for God’s sake.”
These politicians and policy makers don’t know what they talk about when it comes to tech. Any one who tells you that programming jobs will be gone because of AI has never written a complex piece of software before. Also the trades pay well because there is a shortage of workers. If everyone starts going into the trades wages will crater. It’s just cycles. I remember when nobody wanted to go into the trades because it didn’t pay well. This created the shortage of workers. And since salaries are better now because of the shortage lots of people want to go into the trades This will create an oversupply of tradespeople and the cycle will repeat.
Lol anyone who thinks you don’t need any programmer in 10 years of time will burn and crash in the next few years when finally realizing that AI isnt as intelligent as we’re being sold.
Good luck trying to troubleshoot the code AI wrote tho.
It really IS ridiculous. I even took a beginners coding class in high school. In the end, we will always needs programmers so if coding is your thing, keep doing it.
But I would personally rather construct a small home with my bare hands than learn to properly program. (I am not good at it…haha)
I work in software development but I also have a second job as an arborists offsider because I’m pretty sure trees will never stop fucking growing.
The Learn To Code hype was being driven by employers to create a work surplus to drive wages down. Now those same employers think they can use AI instead.
then it’s going to inadvertently happen to the trades too 😬
I remain deeply skeptical that AI can solve the types of complex problems that require human thought. AIs will never be able to abstract away details correctly or design sensible workflows for boutique problems.
They can’t, this is the same shit that happened when the dipshit ceos sent dev jobs over seas to code farms. Devs lost their jobs, and the code went to shit. Then when shit started breaking, they magically rehired everyone again to spend years cleaning up the shit code. LLMs are this all over again, just quicker this time.
The problems start if it can take on a lot of the junior work. If nobody can enter the industry, nobody can get the experience required to do the real engineering.
Open-source and personal work may be the only way to enter the programming field in the next decade.
Now is the worst time to try to enter the field. We need to see the AI bubble burst much more spectacularly, and only then might it be more reasonable. You certainly don’t want to try to get into a field when you have a lot of other choices when that field is already flooded with all of these people who have been laid off, combined with the increased availability of programmers in other countries, knowing that at the moment many domestic programmers are not smart enough to form strong unions to protect their own jobs.
AIs will never be able to abstract away details correctly or design sensible workflows for boutique problems.
Not the current direction of AI, no. But the field is ever advancing. I won’t be shocked if we see AI capable of these things within my lifetime.
Construction jobs? Buddy. We can 3D print houses now.
Yet it’s not a popular way to do it, and multiple company closed after a few years of operating.
Someone still have to assemble it.
That’s what the 3D printer is doing.
See, if you were really smart, you’d learn how to engineer software to construct things. 😌
Typical pork cycle. By the time everybody was pushed towards IT/Coding and all the hundred ways to get into IT popped up, there were already too many people wanting an IT job. You were basically called stupid if you didn’t “just learn to code” to get a well paid, stable job. It’s your own fault for chosing a manual labor job instead of applying yourself and learning some coding skills! So everybody was pushed towards IT and made to feel stupid if they didn’t try to learn coding.
Learn code anyway. LLMs can’t code worth a shit, so there will be plenty of jobs available to clean up their mess.
LLMs can’t code worth a shit yet. But techbros are determined to change that. The sad reality is that code is just a form of language, and LLMs are good at learning languages. They can’t code worth shit right now, but the progress likely will improve them.
We’ll still need experienced debuggers who can actually code. But in a decade, the broad strokes will likely be done by LLMs, which will vastly shrink the demand for experienced coders.
Lmfao the hardest part of building a product is understanding customer wants and needs. LLMs are incapable of understanding
You described project management
No, it’s the difference between software engineering and software development. If your project manager is handling that, your org is wack
If you’re not understanding why the spec is the way it is, you’re just creating job security for your replacement lol
I thought that was just the job we give people who are trying their best but can’t really anything.
The sad reality is that code is just a form of language, and LLMs are good at learning languages.
This is debatable. LLMs are prediction machines.
What use is prediction when you are trying to code something new?
The vast majority of coding isn’t making something new, it’s using existing patterns and tools and arranging them to fit a specific use case.
Llms may not be able to create a new framework or design pattern, but neither will most coders in there day to day.
The vast majority of coding isn’t making something new, it’s using existing patterns and tools and arranging them to fit a specific use case.
I would argue that arranging something to fit a specific use case is making something new.
Ask any designer how difficult it is to get a spec sheet from a client and meet their expectations. We’re expecting LLMs to suddenly solve this problem.
Llms may not be able to create a new framework or design pattern
Until they can do this, there is little threat to designers. There will be less grunt work, of course.
Tbh this whole thing made me realize what we really need is a modular automated code bank. There’s so much duplication of effort it’s honestly absurd.
Right we’ve got this scattershot network of libraries but no one’s really been up to the task of taking the next logical steps.
Open source, libraries, frameworks and language development is how this is tackled.
Making software is implementing business logic. It’s the specific nature of whatever problem you are solving which means you can’t use some existing off-the-shelf product.
There are dozens (if not hundreds) of no-code/low-code app builders out there. Things like n8n or ndoe-red.
They get very difficult to maintain at scale.
Right now they are. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Compared to just 20 years ago we’re living in the future. You may not have noticed the progress because you’d expect the future to includes hoverboards.
Right now they are. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
We do. Experienced programmers who have been promised we’re about to be obsolete several times, now. For many of us, this isn’t our first rodeo.
As an expert in computers, there’s two things I can guarantee about the future of computers:
- Computers will just keep getting smarter.
- After decades of getting smarter, computers remain deeply stupid in ways that non-experts cannot imagine. However dumb you think your computer might be, I promise it’s somehow significantly dumber than that.
As a software engineer who uses AI agents daily, let me tell you: now is as good a time as any to learn to code. LLMs won’t replace any developers.
As a graduate from good university in computer science who is struggling to find a job. Go learn something that can be aided by code, but don’t make code the center of your career…
“any developers?” bad choice of words. I can promise you with absolute certainty that SOME developers WILL be made redundant because of AI.
not all, not lots, not the majority, but some
LLMs are going to replace some developers, the companies that do that will fold because their product doesn’t work, the developers will get jobs elsewhere.
The market can stay irrational for longer than you can afford not to eat
Well the job market for developers is still pretty tight at the moment. I don’t have the insight to say for sure why (though I have some guesses), but I know that for me and every junior developer I know it’s rough out there.
I don’t have the insight to say for sure why (though I have some guesses),
In the USA, there’s a tax break for research teams expiring this year. Supposedly it made software develoent team salaries fully tax deductable.
In the USA, I suspect this is the real motive for using the AI hype train to justify layoffs.
I’m willing to admit “Most CEOs are stupid” also has merit, of course.
As a junior dev with prior working experience, currently not working as a programmer, yeah. I can only agree.
We might understand AI won’t actually solve the same problems we are able to solve, but the people deciding budgets dont understand that.
They don’t understand a lot. For whatever reason, higher management still thinks things are like a factory, and you just build your software like building a car.
Why? Because that’s the only way they know in the world of MBAs. They can’t speak any other language than “product.”
Having been around for a few decades now I can tell you that the job market comes and goes. Things have been tight before, and there has been more openings than people to work them many times in the past. I can’t tell you when things will turn around, but odds are they will. (this is sadly not helpful if you are one of those currently needing a job)
Well it’s good to know my schooling might not be a complete waste at least
I’ve known more than one person who found a completely different career and never went back. You might take a job in Real Estate as one person I know did and discover you like it better and so all that time in school was a waste now that you know you don’t want to do that. Or maybe not - you might take that job to make ends meet (as I once had to take a non-tech job) and decide you hate enough that you don’t want to go back.
Problem is, people want a silver bullet and there just isn’t one.
You need to create an economy that works for everyone where skilled workers from all professions can be successful. You can’t cram everybody into one job and expect everything to just work out.
Just about all jobs are important, and all workers deserve a living wage and fair compensation.
No amount of Band-Aid job stuffing is going to make up for a leadership that doesn’t believe that everyone ought to be able to live a good life.
Demand for human workforce is primarily caused by the economy’s growth. It requires significantly less human workers to maintain an economy.
Well, anyone who knows anything about the current iteration of AI knows that it’s not really happening.
Btw, people have been saying that since GPT-3 (which everyone nowadays admits was kinda shit if it wasn’t for the novelty), so only 5 years left until my career is over.
We are still a long ways away from AI being able to replace programmers. The amount of sheer bullshit code and wrong stuff it writes currently will cripple any information system currently keeping economies up and running.
That won’t stop large corporations from dramatically reducing programming jobs my friend.
Until they notice that cleaning up after failed AI-written code is more expensive than writing working code from the start. Which is already happening for some companies.
Which is already happening for some companies.
Yes. We’re just getting there. Three years ago, there wasn’t much hiring of junior developers, and it takes about three years for a junior to grow into a senior.
It also takes 3-5 years for stupid code choices to hurt in ways that affect a businesses bottom line.
These two factors should boil over each-other nicely in the near future.
takes about three years for a junior to grow into a senior.
We might have vastly different definitions what is a senior then, or you’re peaking at the Donner-Kebab curve.
We might have vastly different definitions what is a senior then
I’m referring to the usual definition for the job title, “Senior Developer”. It’s also a pretty good bare minimum skill definition needed to not constantly make costly mistakes.
or you’re peaking at the Donner-Kebab curve.
I didn’t set the industry wide definition, I am using it.
If you’re angry with the lack of titles that reflect real seniority, join a union, or start one!
Why are you pushing emotions at me? Don’t do it.
Even google’s Ai summary slop says that industry standard is 5-10 years, not 3.
I watched in real time tech bros defending AI about stealing everyone’s art to them realizing that they’re creating something that will replace them. It was sad funny.
They will be forced to replace the laid off workers when they see that AI doesn’t replace them. Having a skill will still be valuable. Search “Klarna AI rehire”. That’s just support agents. Coders will be fine.
Sounds like a lot of opportunities opening up for smaller independent companies.
I think a lot of the crunch in the labor market for programmers is “monkey see monkey do” thinking at the big tech companies. It might even be somewhat calculated, though I hesitate to call something a conspiracy when it could simply be due to stupidity on the part of senior management.
Large tech companies tend to have a lot of flexibility and their total headcount because they have a wide variety of departments and tasks that they can set aside for an extended period before it causes any problems. Those problems will eventually catch up with them, though, as will a code base written by somebody who doesn’t understand what they’re trying to accomplish.
So I think the pendulum is going to swing back to a labor crunch at some point. My guess is at least another 6 months before we see any hint of that, though. I don’t think it will be as bad as it was before the advent of LLMs, though. They really are a productivity enhancing tool, particularly for software developers who know what they’re doing.
The only field I see LLMs enhancing productivity of competent developers is front end stuff where you really have to write a lot of bloat.
In every other scenario software developers who know what they’re doing the simple or repetitive things are mostly solved by writing a fucking function, class or library. In today’s world developers are mostly busy designing and implementing rather complex systems or managing legacy code, where LLMs are completely useless.
We’re developing measurement systems and data analysis tools for the automotive industry and we tried several LLMs extensively in our daily business. Not a single developer was happy with the results.
Well yeah but I believe the idea is in short the uncertainty, why it’s saying “in 10 years”. Think of it now as you have a kid graduating high school this year, and asks you what to major in in college that’s likely to make enough to pay off those killer loans it’s going to take.
Well, Wordpress was meant to replace all professional web builders. Visual programming was meant to obsolete all programmers because everyone will be able to write software. Every decade there’s a new thing that will replace programmers. Nothing did so far.
Nothing did so far.
You have to admit, Visual Basic 3.0 was some cool shit, though, right?
I’ll admit it didn’t replace us, and it’s gone now. But that shit was still cool.
