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- Hacker News
- Yes, but OH, the destruction along the way.
My son wants to enter the software profession. He isn't just immitating his father, he really considered different careers and really likes this one. He is capable -- had nearly a year of experience working at a tiny company building a high performance database in C before they had to shrink; not quite enough experience to qualify for "experienced" jobs. He is even comfortable with using AI to build code.
But he simply cannot find work. No one is hiring entry level software developers (especially not those who are better at designing code than at networking colleagues). It appears that he will be driven out of the field because of the disruption AI is bringing, and I morn for that.
by mcherm - I don’t particularly like the horse to engine angle because it doesn’t capture the issue well.
When we automated physical activity people that were crowded out moved into knowledge work. Now we’re automating knowledge work so people move into ???
Leisure? Become a useless class? UBI? Something else entirely?
by Havoc - Amazing. I bet this can really help thousands of programmers who are simply not needed, because companies decided to replace them with AI agents. These philosophical ponders are very comfortable to do when your ass is safe. Most of people don’t have this privilege.
> what if what we loved about this job was never only the code?
It never was the code. The code is how you solve problems, make stuff happen. The code is a tool. It’s people’s brain that is of value. People learn how to use these tools the best they can. And now they are told that they should become mere supervisors for the AI agents. Simply by trusting the output and QA-ing the result. Because no human can keep track of the AI’s generated mess.
by rckt - And my great great grandpa thought horses would lose all their jobs to cars. And they all did and it was never the same again.
There’s no quick answers, but intuitively I think we all get that the % of jobs not doable by AI and robotics approaches 0 over time.
by zug_zug - Have any of these articles actually addressed HOW software developers are supposed to retrain for good jobs? Personally I have neither the money nor the years to go back to college to get a livable job.by harimau777
- Lots of doom in here.
If software engineering goes the way of the dodo, I suspect most other white collar jobs are also displaced (anything done entirely on the computer, really). A few years after that I suspect an overwhelming supply of physical labor.
It’s a house of cards at that point, sure - software engineering could be the first to go, but I don’t see any reason to try to retrain or pivot. As soon as I lose my job and jump to plumbing, the rest of the white collar jobs are going with me.
If we get to that point, I’m just going to assume that the rest of the world is also going to be in shambles.
Though, I’m more of a Jevon’s paradox believer. We’ve had so much work in the backlog and now we can finally take a stab at it, I’ve been busier than I ever have been. Until the AI can competently run our entire stack, I’m skeptical. If it gets there, I’ve got no reason to try swapping jobs, because everything will be busted in a short timeframe - no?
I’m also trying to keep my eyes on the big dogs. Once Google starts to hemorrhage engineers and knowledge workers that means that AI can meaningfully replace entire roles, but until then I’m just sitting tight and building stuff, business as usual I guess…
I feel for everyone else in this position, on edge for the last 3 years with no end in sight.
- There is a quote from a CGP Grey video from a bit over a decade ago, "There isn't a rule of economics that says better technology makes more, better jobs for horses. It sounds shockingly dumb to even say that out loud, but swap horses for humans and suddenly people think it sounds about right." [1]
A couple hundred years ago, something like 70% of the population worked in agriculture. Technology replaced almost all of these jobs.
So far, we have reimagined old professions and created brand new ones. Is this ability of ours limitless?
by bhelkey - Author here! Thanks for all the comments. This post isn't meant as a lesson or a judgment, something to tell "just shut up and adapt like my ancestor did". The situation is hard, and I wasn't trying to dismiss anyone's anxiety. No one wants to hear "you'll be fine" when something bad just happened.
It's mostly a personal story. You can see it as a kind of tribute to a great-great-grandfather I never met, partly because I'd never heard a story like it before. It's banal but still a big adventure in the family. I find it fascinating that he grew up in a completely different world from mine and still felt some of the same doubts and anxieties I do today. And I'm really proud of him, because his "pivot" let my family stay in the village instead of maybe leaving to work in factories in the city. My father loved his job, and in a way that's thanks to him.
by megalomanu