Discussion

Why Do They Want To Get Rid of Software Engineers?

ekjhgkejhgk: Software engineers are laborers. If you're a capital owner, a laborer is something that weights down your returns.It's not rocket science.

hshdhdhj4444: I’m honestly at a loss for words at this question.We’re software engineers. Like half of the work we do is try and automate jobs.Are we really confused about why “they” might want to automate our jobs?

measurablefunc: It would be much better to replace CEOs & other C-suite execs but no one is working on that kind of AI.

Snoozle: 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.

ekjhgkejhgk: Who's "we"? I won't stop knowing how to write. If other people do, that's their problem.

edgolub: 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.Let that sink in.

palmotea: > Software engineers are laborers. If you're a capital owner, a laborer is something that weights down your returns.> It's not rocket science.It's far above the heads of many supposedly "smart" software engineers, who looked at their high salaries and 401ks, forgot they were disposable laborers, and confused themselves for capitalist tycoons.

armchairhacker: Why do "they" (bloggers) want to get rid of their own writing?What are the good reasons to write a blog, minus those that involve you actually writing it?

Snoozle: I meant rather the market for human writing will vanish when 80% or more of the population views LLM text as good communication.

colesantiago: > Part of this is jealousy (yes, I said it)This feels like cope here.They want to get rid of SWE because they are highly paid (in the US especially) and they want them for cheap (e.g. Bangalore, London)AI just makes it a no brainer.Also I don't think there is anything wrong with everyone being a software engineer, more accessibility to the SWE field for all is great.Current SWE's will just need to now adapt quicker to remain relevant, and those that can't will just then leave the field.Perhaps those that don't adapt were probably not good engineers anyway.

add-sub-mul-div: That's like saying that the chefs who didn't want to adapt when their restaurant became a McDonald's were probably not the good chefs anyway.

bayarearefugee: > forgot they were disposable laborers, and confused themselves for capitalists.I agree with this, but it isn't just limited to software engineers. Most of the supposed "middle class" in the US fits this description.We currently have the highest level of wealth inequality in history which is still growing at runaway rates and plenty of laborers who view themselves as "temporarily embarrassed billionaires" willing to prop up the system, seemingly unaware that those at the top will gladly wipe them off their boot when given the chance.

deepsun: Counterpoint -- capital owners see SWEs as their asset, and owners do not like to see their assets go away (with intellectual property in their heads). So they nurture and give a lot of freedom to their SWEs.I've seen both ways, and don't share the "capital owners BAD" sentiment. The first thing to join a company is to see whether they assign Eng department to Costs or to Assets mentally.

joe_the_user: I agree but I'd also note that a capital owner actually has a couple motivations to get rid of high paid labors.1) Cost2) Flexibility. If you can hire random laborers to do most of your tasks, you can quickly scale up whereas if you depend on highly skilled and trained workers, starting a new operation elsewhere is hard. Similar, you can shift activity around, are less impeded by the opinions of workers, etc. Significantly, this may allow you to "franchise" your operations in various ways.

ducktastic: From what I am seeing in the consulting space for enterprisey companies is that there is an extreme push to normalize /standardize all tools/platforms not even talking about AI tools to be able to replace tribal knowledge with cheaper workers. The narrative and in some cases reality of AI is just bringing the badhavior to the forefront

ctdinjeu2: If developers are honest with themselves, this has been a long time coming.In the early 00s, nobody even knew what the hell we were doing. Most people asked things like “do you do IT?” nobody really got it.The idea of photoshopping a mockup, or the idea that Wordpress is how you build the website for their business and why they now need “HTML5”, the cloud and advent of IaaS/PaaS, I digress:All the esoteric aspects of the work and knowledge have been curricularized.There are a million Joe React Developers now, everybody can use Figma, anyone can manage a sprint, and with AI forget it - anyone can play now.Buuut not so fast you say, and yeah I agree with you!And yet, I know that you know that they know that we know that they know. You know?

0x20cowboy: “Here's the part I think a lot of people miss:”:-/The same argument could be made about people writing articles and influencing actions in other humans. Something, it seems, people want to use AI for. Have AI write articles for them.

paxys: This reads like a fanfic."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? The same has happened to a thousand other professions, and software engineers aren't immune to the march of technology.

ASalazarMX: 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.

moralestapia: ???Flagged why?I think it was a pretty good article.I don't how this could offend anyone.

colesantiago: Unfortunately you need to get with the times, or get left behind.

js8: 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.)

Jtsummers: 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).