If AI is so good at coding - where are the open source contributions?
If AI is so good at coding - where are the open source contributions?
You can hardly get online these days without hearing some AI booster talk about how AI coding is going to replace human programmers. AI code is absolutely up to production quality! Also, you’re all…
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To be honest, so many of the comments in this thread are just cope.
It's true that ai isn't a replacement for good coders ..YET.
But it will be. You all can be as mad as you want, publish as many articles about how much ai sucks as you want. but it won't stop anything from happening.
I say this as someone who has just started to learn to code myself.
The reason you all are mad is because you suddenly feel unsafe and unappreciated. And you're right.
Ai is still gonna happen though. It will take away a lot of your jobs (especially starting with jr coders just getting into the market). It will lower your pay. You can yell about it, or you can adapt. Sucks, but it is what it is.
Think of it this way: what do you think the market is gonna be like in 5 years? Then 10? Brah, start preparing now. Right fucking now. Cuz it ain't gonna get easier for you. I promise.
It happened with blue-collar factory works in the midwest regions of the US because of automation and offshoring. People bitched and tried to stop it. Lots of snooty white-color workers yelled, "learn to code!" But none of that saved their jobs.
And you guys won't stop it happening with your jobs either. I don't like the idea of AI taking over everything either. But it will. Adapt or die.
I've just started to learn to code. I am enjoying it. But in no way, shape, or form am I thinking it's going to lead to a job for me.
EDIT: To copy what some else said, much better than me:
The idea that AI will some day be good at coding isn’t the issue. The issue is that some people in management think it’s already well on the way to being a good substitute, and they’re trying to do more with fewer coders to everyone’s detriment.
To be honest, you sound like you're only just starting to learn to code.
Will coding forever belong to humans? No. Is the current generative-AI technology going to replace coders? Also no.
The reaction you see is frustration because it's obvious to anyone with decent skill that AI isn't up to the challenge, but it's not obvious to people who don't have that skill and so we now spend a lot of time telling bosses "no, that's not actually correct".
Someone else referenced Microsoft's public work with Copilot. Here's Copilot making 13 PRs over 5 days and only 4 ever get merged you might think "30% success is pretty good!" But compare that with human-generated PRs and you can see that 30% fucking sucks. And that's not even looking inside the PR where the bot wastes everyone's time making tons of mistakes. It's just a terrible coworker and instead of getting fired they're getting an award for top performer.
It's the Dunning-Kruger effect.
And it's fostered by an massive amount of spam and astroturfing coming from "AI" companies, lying that LLMs are good at this or that. Sure, algorithms like neural networks can recognize patterns. Algorithms like backtracking can play chess or solve or transform algebraic equations. But these are not LLMs and LLMs will not and can not replace software engineering.
Sure, companies want to pay less for programming. But they don't pay for software developers to generate some gibberish in source code syntax, they need working code. And this is why software engineers and good programmers will not only remain scarce but will become even shorter in supply.
And companies that don't pay six-figure salaries to developers will find that experienced developers will flat out refuse to work on AI-generated codebases, because they are unmaintainable and lead to burnout and brain rot.
To be honest, you sound like you’re only just starting to learn to code.
I definitely am. But I have no doubts that ai is going to take a lot of entry-level type jobs soon, and eventually higher end jobs.
We'll always need good, smart coders. Just not as many as we have now.
but it’s not obvious to people who don’t have that skill and so we now spend a lot of time telling bosses “no, that’s not actually correct”.
I get it. But those clueless people are gonna be the people in charge of hiring, and they'll decide to hire less, and expect current staff to do more. I've seen in hundreds of time in industries, and it's already happening now in yours.
For context, I'm old. So I've seen your arguments in many different industries.
And to your point, they'll have ai replacing good people, long before ai is good enough to. But you're approaching the issue with logic. Corporate lacks a lot of logic.
I'm already seeing it in your industry. Plenty of reddit/Lemmy posts talking about how coders have been laid off, and having a much much more difficult time getting another job than at any point in their careers.
Again, I'm saying AI is a good solution. I'm saying management will think that. Just like they did when they offshored jobs to much less skilled, yet way more inexpensive workers.
To copy what someone else in this thread said:
The idea that AI will some day be good at coding isn’t the issue. The issue is that some people in management think it’s already well on the way to being a good substitute, and they’re trying to do more with fewer coders to everyone’s detriment.
If you walk around in my city and open your eyes, you will see that half of the bars and restaurants are closed because there is a shortage of even unskilled staff and restaurants didn't pay enough to people. They now work in other sectors.
And yes, software developers are leaving jobs with unreasonable demands and shitty work conditions. Last not least because conserving mental health is more important. Go, for exanple, to the news.ycombinators.com forum and just search for the keyword "burnout". That's becoming a massive problem for companies because rising complexity is not matched by adequate organizational practices.
And AI is not going to help with that - it is already massively increasing technical debt.
I don't understand how you think this works.
If I say, "now we have robots that can build a car from scratch!" the automakers will be salivating. But if my robot actually cannot build a car, then I don't think it's going to cause mass layoffs.
Many of the big software companies are doing mass layoffs. It's not because AI has taken over the jobs. They always hired extra people as a form of anti-competitiveness. Now they're doing layoffs to drive salaries down. That sucks and tech workers would be smart to unionize (we won't). But I don't see any radical shift in the industry.
A big part of the changed software job market in the US is caused by the rise of interest rates, and in consequence a large part of high-risk venture capital money drying up. This was finsncing a lot of start-ups without any solid product or business model. And, this began very clearly before the AI hype.
The trope that AI is actually replacing jobs is a lie that AI companies want you to believe.
Companies are also using AI to mask layoffs. "Yeah we dont need as many employees because AI can do their jobs better. Please shareholders, buy more stock and ignore our numbers!"
I don’t understand how you think this works.
Do you think I am the only one that thinks like this? You don't think middle and upper management thinks like I do?
But I don’t see any radical shift in the industry.
Oh, I'm saving this comment. Dude, go into any CSjobs forum and you tell me that there's not a shift in the industry. lol
I'll say this. I hope you're right. (but you're not)
Do you think there's any reason to believe that these tools are going to continue their breakneck progress? It seems like we've reached a point where throwing more GPUs and text at these things is not yielding more results, and they still don't have the problem solving skills to work out tasks outside of their training set. It's closer to a StackOverflow that magically has the answers to most questions you ask than a replacement for proper software engineering. I know you never know if a breakthrough is around the corner, but it feels like we've hit a plateau for the foreseeable future.
Do you think there’s any reason to believe that these tools are going to continue their breakneck progress?
I do.
And as I mentioned in another comment, it's not so much that I think AI will do a better job, it's that I think MANAGEMENT will think AI does a cheaper job. Already many tech people who have been laid off are saying it's the worst job market they've ever seen.
AI sucks. But management is about dollars NOW. The are shortsided, fall into fads, and they will see the cost savings now as outweight the long term problems. I don't agree with them, I am saying they will do that tho. Even if we don't agree.
To copy what someone else in this thread said:
The idea that AI will some day be good at coding isn’t the issue. The issue is that some people in management think it’s already well on the way to being a good substitute, and they’re trying to do more with fewer coders to everyone’s detriment.
I think the biggest difference between this and blue-collars workers losing their jobs, though, is that the same people losing their jobs are also placed very to benefit from the technology. Blue collared workers losing manufacturing jobs couldn't, because they were priced out of obtaining that mafacturing hardware themselves, but programmers can use AI on an individual basis to augment their production. Not sure what the industry will look like in 10 years, but I feel like there will be plenty of opportunities for people who build digital things.
That being said, people who were looking to be junior developers exactly right now.... uhhh.... that's some extrememly unlucky timing. I wish you luck.
Well I'm old, so not looking for a job, I am just learning programming because i want to. But to your point, I am seeing LOTS of developers who have been laid off and finding another job is proving more challenging than ever before. It's rough out there and I feel for them.
To copy what someone else in this thread said:
The idea that AI will some day be good at coding isn’t the issue. The issue is that some people in management think it’s already well on the way to being a good substitute, and they’re trying to do more with fewer coders to everyone’s detriment.
Oh layoffs are definitely happening. I'm just not sure if it's caused by AI productivity gains, or if it's just the latest excuse (the pandemic, then soft layoffs of "back to office" enforcement, and now AI). Esp since the companies most talking about AI productivity gains are the same companies that benefit from AI adoption...
What I wanted to explain is just that the skills to program actually translate pretty well. At my old company, we used to say "you know someone's a staff engineer, because they only make PowerPoint presentations and diagrams, and don't actually write any code". And those skills directly translate to directing an AI to build the thing you need. The abstracted architect role will probably increase in value, as the typing value decreases.
My biggest concern is probably that AI is currently eating junior dev jobs, since what it excels at is typically the kind of work you'd give to a junior engineer. And I think that more gruntwork kinda tasks are the way that someone develops the higher level skills that are important later; you start to see the kinds of edge cases first hand, so it makes them memorable. But I feel like that might just be a transition thing; many developers these days don't know bare code down to the 1s and 0s. The abstraction might just move up another level, and people will build more things. At least, this is the optimistic view. 🤷 But I'm an optimistic guy.
My biggest concern is probably that AI is currently eating junior dev jobs, since what it excels at is typically the kind of work you’d give to a junior engineer.
Yeah, def gonna be rough for people graduating from college right now.