Its why unions, associations, professional bodies, etc exist for example. This whole thread is an example -> the value gained from efficiency in SWE jobs doesn't seem to be accruing value to the people with SWE skills.

The catch is you probably only want to be invested after any writeoffs/corrections if that is your hypothesis. i.e. the future may be AI, but it isn't a straight line, nor is it guaranteed that the current players will be the future AI company of choice. You can be right about the end state and still lose your shirt in between with markets.

I use AI, and for some things its great. But I'm feeling like they want us to use the "blunt instrument" that is AI when sometimes a smaller, more fine grained tool/just handcrafting code for accuracy at least for me is quicker and more appropriate. The autonomy window as I recently heard it expressed.

My anecdotal observation talking to people: Most tech cycles I've seen have hype/excitement but this is the first one I've been in at least that I've seen a large amount of fear/despair. From loss of jobs, automating all the "good stuff", enriching only the privileged, etc etc people are worried. As loss aversion animals fear is usually more effective for engagement especially if it means a loss of what was before - people are engaged but I suspect negative towards the whole AI thing in general even if they won't say it on the record. Fear also creates a singular focus; when you are threatened/anxious its harder for people to engage with other topics and makes you see AI trend as something you would want to see fail. That paints AI researchers as not just negative; but almost changing their own profession/world for the worse which doesn't elicit a positive response from people.

And for the others, even if they don't have this engagement, the fact that this is drowning out other things can be annoying to some tech workers as well. Other tech talks, articles, research, etc is just silent in comparison.

YMMV; this is just my current anecdotal observations in my limited circle but I suspect others are seeing the same.

- There is a moat of doing so (i.e. will people actually pay for your SaaS knowing that they could do it too via AI) and..

- How many large scale ideas do you need post AI? Many SaaS products are subscription based and loaded with features you don't need. Most people would prefer a simple product that just does what they need without the ongoing costs.

There will be more software. The question is who accrues the economic value of this additional software - the SWE/tech industry (incumbent), the AI industry (disruptor?) and/or the consumer. For the SWE's/tech workers it probably isn't what they envisioned when they started/studied for this industry.

Yes an AI will come up with more insight than many management people as many people state in this thread that a LLM can do their job. Its a mistake to assume that's what they are paid for however.

In any case I'm not saying I think they will achieve it, or achieve it soon - I don't have that foresight. I'm just elaborating on their implied stated goals; they don't state them directly but reading their announcements on their models, code tools, etc that's IMO their implied end game. Anthrophic recently announced statistics that most of their model usage is for coding. Thinking it is just augmentation doesn't justify the money IMO put into these companies by VC's, funds, etc - they are looking for bigger payoffs than that remembering that many of these AI companies aren't breaking even yet.

I was replying the the parent comment - augmentation and/or copilots don't seem to be their end game/goal. Whether they are actually successful is another story.

The ability to earn the big bucks as you state is not a function of the value delivered/produced, but the scarcity and difficulty in acquiring said value. That is capitalism. An extreme example is clear air that we breathe - it is currently free, but extremely valuable to most living things. If we made it scarce (e.g. pollution) eventually people would start charging for it; potentially at extortionary prices depending on how rare it becomes.

The only exception I see is if the software encodes a domain that isn't as accessible to people and is kept secret/under wraps, has natural protections (e.g. a government system that is mandatory to use), or is complex and still requires co-ordination and understanding. This does happen, but then I would argue the value is in the adjacent domain knowledge - not in the software itself.

Most Copilot style setup's (not just in this domain) are designed to gather data and train/gather feedback before full automation or downsizing. If they outright said it they may not have got the initial usage needed to do so from developers. Even if it is augmentation it feels like at least to me the other IT roles (e.g. BA's, Solution Engineers maybe?) are safer than SWE's going forward. Maybe its because dev's have a skin in the game and without AI its not that easy of a job over time makes it harder for them to see. Respect for SWE as a job in general has fallen in at least my anecdotal conversations mainly due to AI - after all long term career prospects are a major factor in career value, social status and personal goals for most people.

Their end goal is to democratize/commoditize programming with AI as low hanging fruit which by definition reduces its value per unit of output. The fact that there is so much discussion on this IMO shows that many even if they don't want to admit it there is a decent chance that they will succeed at this goal.

Anecdotally most people I know are against AI - they see more negatives from it than positives. Reading things like this just reinforces that belief.

The question of why are we even doing this? Why did we invent this? etc. Most people aren't interested in creating a "worthy successor" at best that eliminates them and potentially their children seeing that goal as nothing but naive and dare I say it wrong. All these thoughts will come from reading the above for most people.

Given as you say the long term cost of AI models is marginally zero, I don't think this is a bad position to be in.

Commoditizing the AI/intelligence part means that the main advantage isn't the bits - its the atoms. Physical dexterity, social skills and manufacturing skills will gain more of a comparative advantage vs intelligence work in the future as a result - AI makes the old economy new again in the long term. It also lowers the value of AI investments in that they no longer can command first mover/monopoly like pricing for what is a very large capex cost undermining US investment in what is their advantage. As long as it is strategic, it doesn't necessarily need to be economic on its own.

For example it isn't what you can do tinkering in your home/garage anymore; or what algorithm you can crack with your intrinsic worth to create more use cases and possibilities - but capital, relationships, hardware and politics. A recent article that went around, and many others are believing capital and wealth will matter more and make "talent" obsolete in the world of AI - this large figure in this article just adds money to that hypothesis.

All this means the big get bigger. It isn't about startup's/grinding hard/working hard/being smarter/etc which means it isn't really meritocratic. This creates an uneven playing field that is quite different than previous software technology phases where the gains/access to the gains has been more distributed/democratized and mostly accessible to the talented/hard working (e.g. the risk taking startup entrepreneur with coding skills and a love of tech).

In some ways it is kind of the opposite of the indy hacker stereotype who ironically is probably one of the biggest losers in the new AI world. In the new world what matters is wealth/ownership of capital, relationships, politics, land, resources and other physical/social assets. In the new AI world scammers, PR people, salespeople, politicians, ultra wealthy with power etc thrive and nepotism/connections are the main advantage. You don't just see this in AI btw (e.g. recent meme coins seen as better path to wealth than working due to weak link to power figure), but AI like any tech amplifies the capability of people with power especially if by definition the powerful don't need to be smart/need other smart people to yield it unlike other tech in the past.

They needed smart people in the past; we may be approaching a world where the smart people make themselves as a whole redundant. I can understand why a place like this doesn't want that to succeed, even if the world's resources are being channeled to that end. Time will tell.

- Faster product development on their side as they eat their own dogfood

- Dev's are the biggest market in the transition period for this tech. Gives you some revenue from direct and indirect subscriptions that the general population does not need/require.

- Fear in leftover coders is great for marketing

- Tech workers are paid well which to VC's, CEO's, etc makes it obvious where the value of this tech comes from. Not with new use cases/apps which would be greatly beneficial to society - but effectively making people redundant saving costs. New use cases/new markets are risky; not paying people is something any MBA/accounting type can understand.

I've heard some people say "its like they are targeting SWE's". I say; yes they probably are. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes SWE jobs but otherwise most people see it as a novelty (barely affects their life) for quite some time.

Generally with AI think the top of society stand to gain a lot more than the middle/bottom of it for a whole host of reasons. If you think anything different your framework you use to make your conclusion is probably wrong at least in IMO.

I don't like saying this but there is a reason why the "AI bros", VC's, big tech CEO's, etc are all very very excited about this and many employees (some commenting here) are filled with dread/fear. The sales people, the managers, the MBA's, etc stand to gain a lot from this. Fear also serves as the best marketing tool; it makes people talk and spread OpenAI's news more so than everything else. Its a reason why targeting coding jobs/any jobs is so effective. I want to be wrong of course.

Unless something changes, if I was a billionaire I would be ecstatic at the moment. Now even the impossible seems potentially possible if this delivers on its promises (e.g. go to Mars, build a utopia for my inner circle, etc). I no longer need other people to have everything. Previously there was no point in money if I didn't have a place to spend it/people to accept it. Now with real assets I can use AI/machines to do what I want - I no longer need "money" or more accurately other people to live a very wealthy life.

Again this is all else being equal. Lots of other things could change, but with increasing surveillance by use of technology I doubt large revolutions/etc will ever get the chance to get off the ground or have the scale to be effective.

Interesting times.