Why does this entire article read like chatgpt? Kind of ironic considering the content.
Big llm smells:
'Not "AI helps you autocomplete a function." Not "AI explains a stack trace." I mean the full-on narrative:'
'Sure, it's a weird language. It looks archaic. Sometimes it's hostile. Sometimes it's beautiful.
But still—if you know what you're doing—you can sit down with a keyboard and turn words into:
a product
a workflow
an automated business process
a system that makes money while you sleep
a tool that saves a team thousands of hours
That's real power. It's leverage.'
'Not because we're lazy. Not because we're gatekeeping. Because building real systems is hard, and the number of people who can reliably do it is limited.'
Sometimes I think we get too caught up on what chatgpt will do to the economy, software, and businesses, and forget the most insidious aspect of this type of technology - we will no longer know how to write and all human text communication will confirm to a specific pattern.
I don't know if it's LLM-generated or not, but I'm guessing you're right. It sure as hell matches the horrible choppy LinkedIn blogspam pattern, though, and that was enough to bounce me right there.
The next generation on humans growing up with TikTok autogenerated AI videos written by ChatGPT, generated by Sora and uploaded to the web using OpenClaw or whatever automation tool you wrote using Claude Code.
There are literally people running bots creating such shortform videos as we speak.
And there are millions of kids (and adults) scrolling those same videos as you reading this.
There's money to be made if you can build an audience. There are many ifs on the way of course, but some people do earn handsomely from publishing. They're called content creators or influencers.
They want to get rid of software engineers because we are expensive, we have an annoying habit of saying no, we are not particularly good looking on average and are not obviously tied to directly revenue in a way that sales is (sales folks tend to be good looking too as a bonus.)
It's basic market dynamics + some high school social calculus.
"My manager wants to get rid of me because I'm too good with computers and he is jealous."
No, he wants to get rid of you because you are an operating expense for the company. If they can achieve the same outcome without paying your salary then why wouldn’t they fire you?
So far they have prevailed despite RADs, 4GLs, no-code solutions, etc. Software engineers have ended up using these new tools to still develop. You can already see developers embracing LLMs to create heaps of trash for fun while they learn to integrate them in their job.
It would take a huge leap forward, if not actual AGI, to fully replace Software Developers. If that's the case, they could replace any human job at any level, not just developers.
I’m less worried about them “fully” replacing developers than what partial replacement looks like for the 95%+ of us who aren’t set-for-life, special genius devs in big tech.
Software engineering as a profession isn’t going anywhere, but what makes AI different from previous fads is that engineers who fail to adapt and update their skills will definitely be replaced.
I kind of agree with the article. AI will make SW engineers (or engineers in general) lot more productive, but you still need someone who translates the fuzzy and potentially conflicting specs into something that can be built. That involves a lot of little decisions on how to resolve contradictions, and that's why formal programming language is used. AI can do it to an extent, but likely it won't get you what you want with less communication.
It's a misunderstanding that AI makes SW engineers less valuable, when the code making is cheaper. This assumes there is some fixed amount of code that the society needs to produce. I think the companies will face a different reality - the code they own ("intellectual property") will become less valuable, but the programmers (who are now effectively promoted to kind of product managers) will become more valuable, as they can now do more (and cause more damage, too).
The innovations of the past, such as compilers and open source, which made programmers more productive, didn't make them obsolete.
That being said, it will take companies (and their owners) some time to accept the new reality - programmers have more power now and it's harder to gatekeep what they work on. So the management of these companies will try to twist it, which will ultimately be counterproductive. The programmers should recognize it and look into some form of social organization - be it unions, professional organization or worker cooperatives. (Distinction of labor vs capital is not a natural law, just like the distinction between lords and peasants isn't god-given.)
Jealousy definitely. They can't do the thing that they depend on for money and AI gives them some feeling of power/an upper-hand. That's why the AI art types immediately started bashing traditional artists as "paint pigs."
I think it spreads further. I just read two different blog posts from two very different authors lamenting the death of "indie businesses." Another developer in person expressed "concern" for me too. What they all had in common is they're in corporate or SaaS, looking at my indie work from the outside.
I suspect it got flagged by the people who think it was written by an LLM, and the people who thought the "jealousy" argument was particularly weak. It's also a lot of words when the answer is obvious (as pointed out by many commenters here): Money.
Since the development of computers, companies have wanted to save money and that's meant a push to find a magic bullet that can replace many, if not most or all, programmers. Natural language programming, RAD tools, much of the work on fifth-generation languages, was oriented around that objective (removing or reducing the dependence on programmers as a category of professionals, versus domain experts who happen to also program).
Biased as the submitter here, but even if "jealousy" may be a weak argument (as presented) some of us were discussing scenarios where jealous statements were too obvious to let slide. It's a real human emotion and adds an unexplored angle.
Readit News
Big llm smells: 'Not "AI helps you autocomplete a function." Not "AI explains a stack trace." I mean the full-on narrative:'
'Sure, it's a weird language. It looks archaic. Sometimes it's hostile. Sometimes it's beautiful.
But still—if you know what you're doing—you can sit down with a keyboard and turn words into:
a product a workflow an automated business process a system that makes money while you sleep a tool that saves a team thousands of hours That's real power. It's leverage.'
'Not because we're lazy. Not because we're gatekeeping. Because building real systems is hard, and the number of people who can reliably do it is limited.'
Sometimes I think we get too caught up on what chatgpt will do to the economy, software, and businesses, and forget the most insidious aspect of this type of technology - we will no longer know how to write and all human text communication will confirm to a specific pattern.
There are literally people running bots creating such shortform videos as we speak.
And there are millions of kids (and adults) scrolling those same videos as you reading this.
Let that sink in.
What are the good reasons to write a blog, minus those that involve you actually writing it?
It's basic market dynamics + some high school social calculus.
"My manager wants to get rid of me because I'm too good with computers and he is jealous."
No, he wants to get rid of you because you are an operating expense for the company. If they can achieve the same outcome without paying your salary then why wouldn’t they fire you?
It would take a huge leap forward, if not actual AGI, to fully replace Software Developers. If that's the case, they could replace any human job at any level, not just developers.
It's a misunderstanding that AI makes SW engineers less valuable, when the code making is cheaper. This assumes there is some fixed amount of code that the society needs to produce. I think the companies will face a different reality - the code they own ("intellectual property") will become less valuable, but the programmers (who are now effectively promoted to kind of product managers) will become more valuable, as they can now do more (and cause more damage, too).
The innovations of the past, such as compilers and open source, which made programmers more productive, didn't make them obsolete.
That being said, it will take companies (and their owners) some time to accept the new reality - programmers have more power now and it's harder to gatekeep what they work on. So the management of these companies will try to twist it, which will ultimately be counterproductive. The programmers should recognize it and look into some form of social organization - be it unions, professional organization or worker cooperatives. (Distinction of labor vs capital is not a natural law, just like the distinction between lords and peasants isn't god-given.)
Dead Comment
"thank god programming is solved, I hated writing code...
anyway, off to issue statements to a computer in a way it can interpret"
https://x.com/iamdevloper/status/2021883924595593300
Flagged why?
I think it was a pretty good article.
I don't how this could offend anyone.
Since the development of computers, companies have wanted to save money and that's meant a push to find a magic bullet that can replace many, if not most or all, programmers. Natural language programming, RAD tools, much of the work on fifth-generation languages, was oriented around that objective (removing or reducing the dependence on programmers as a category of professionals, versus domain experts who happen to also program).