While I think both sides have an argument on the eventual SWE career viability there is a problem. The downsides of hiring now (costs, uncertainity of work velocity, dry backlogs, etc) are certain; the risk of paying more later is not guaranteed and maybe not as big of an issue. Also training juniors doesn't always benefit the person paying.

* If you think long term that we will need seniors again (industry stays same size or starts growing again) given the usual high ROI on software most can afford to defer that decision till later. Goes back to pre-AI calculus and SWE's were expensive then and people still payed for them.

* If you think that the industry shrinks then its better to hold off so you get more out of your current staff, and you don't "hire to fire". Hopefully the industry on average shrinks in proportion to natural retirement of staff - I've seen this happen for example in local manufacturing where the plant lives but slowly winds down over time and as people retire they aren't replaced.

It also doesn't help that some people in this role believe that the SWE career is a sinking ship which creates an incentive to climb over others and profit before it tanks (i.e. build AI tools, automate it and profit). This is the typical "It isn't AI, but the person who automates your job using AI that replaces you".

AI Engineers aren't actually SWE's per se; they use code but they see it as tedious non-main work IMO. They are happy to automate their compliment and raise in status vs SWE's who typically before all of this had more employment opportunities and more practical ways to show value.

Not every software project has or did this. In fact I would argue many new businesses exist that didn't exist before software and computing and people are doing things they didn't beforehand. Especially around discovery of information - solving the "I don't know what I don't know" problem also expanded markets and demand to people who now know.

Whereas the current AI wave seems to be more about efficiency/industrialization/democratizing of existing use cases rather than novel things to date. I would be more excited if I saw more "product orientated" AI use cases other than destroying jobs. While I'm hoping that the "vibing" of software will mean that SWE's are needed to productionise it I'm not confident that AI won't be able to do that soon too nor any other knowledge profession.

I wouldn't be surprised with AI if there's mass unemployment but we still don't cure cancer for example in 20 years.

When you are thinking your days are numbered any cost to develop software (even token budget) is measured. As coding becomes commoditized the ROI in code will drop of that code (capitalism rewards scarcity; not value delivered) and you suddenly become cost conscious. We are moving from a monopoly-moat like market to a competitive cost based market in SWE as AI improves.

Not all open source but a lot of it is fundamentally for humans to consume. If AI can, at its extreme (still remains to be seen), just magic up the software then the value of libraries and a lot of open source software will decline. In some ways its a fundamentally different paradigm of computing, and we don't yet understand what that looks like.

As AI gets better OSS contributes to it; but in its source code feeding the training data not as a direct framework dependency. If the LLM's continue to get better I can see the whole concept of frameworks being less and less necessary.

If we didn't have open source arguably developers would be more secure, way more secure, in the face of AI.

The seniors who have less leeway to change course (its harder as you get older in general, large sunk costs, etc) maintain their positions and the disruption occurs at the usual "retirement rate" meaning the industry shrinks a bit each year. They don't get much with pay rises, etc but normally they have some buffer from earlier times so are willing to wear being in a dying field. Staff aren't replaced but on the whole they still have marginal long term value (e.g. domain knowledge on the job that keeps them somewhat respected there or "that guy was around when they had to do that; show respect" kind of thing).

The juniors move to other industries where the price signal shows value and strong demand remains (e.g. locally for me that's trades but YMMV). They don't have the sunk cost and have time on their side to pivot.

If done right the disruption to people's lives can be small and most of the gains of the tech can still come out. My fear is the AI wave will happen fast but only in certain domains (the worst case for SWE's) meaning the adjustment will be hard hitting without appropriate support mechanisms (i.e. most of society doesn't feel it so they don't care). On average individual people aren't that adaptable, but over generations society is.

What that means for society where there are extremely rich people who owns resources and capital, and everyone else is only valued for their dexterity and physical labor (vs skills) I can only guess.

I do think the AI labs have potentially unleashed a society changing technology that ironically penalizes meritocracy and/or intelligence by making it less scarce. The jobs left will be the ones people avoided for a reason (health, risk, etc)

Because unlike previously:

  - You can't invest in these things directly (mostly private) so gains are at best diluted for retail investors.

  - They can take your job AND still be unprofitable (i.e. on VC money/subsidized).

  - Value accures to capital/companies using it potentially, not the AI labs themselves in a competitive market. In which case the gains will be across many industries and be diluted (i.e. not life changing if you invest enough to offset income loss)

  - They are exposed to the loss of income of their labor.

  - They don't have the capital and/or risk tolerance to invest accordingly.

  - The way to invest in these isn't obvious and is subject to unsystematic risk (i.e. can you pick the winners?).

Life/fate does have a sense of irony it seems. I wouldn't be surprised if it is just the "creative" industries that die; and normal jobs that provide little value today still survive in some form - they weren't judged on value delivered and still existed after all.

No one wants to say the scary potential logical conclusion of replacing the last value that humans have a competitive advantage in; that being intelligence and cognition. For example there is one future scenario of humanity where only the capital and resource holders survive; the middle and lower classes become surplus to requirements and lose any power. Its already happening slowly via inflation and higher asset prices after all - it is a very real possibility. I don't think a revolution will be possible in this scenario; with AI and robotics the rich could outnumber pretty much everyone.

As a possibility for example I can see them transforming from a GPU based corp into a parent company for many full or partially owned "subsidiaries". They still manufacture chips to be "vertically integrated" but that becomes bread and butter as an enablement rather than the main story (e.g. Google TPU's). As their margins go down the value accrues to what they are owning (the business units/product areas).

Generally outside SV:

- If you are making $250+ it is at least middle management (not tech work) AND

- Only in zones where cost of living is eating this up (e.g. UK/Europe/Australia/etc can get to this equilvalent salary but costs for example for rent, food, tax, etc are much higher).

In most countries SWE is above average pay, but it isn't life changing and it still unfortunately has the boom/bust cycles.

I've met some very good engineers who have built some great large scale solutions who are on less than this salary often in non tech firms being outside of the SV area due to personal reasons (e.g. can't move due to family, too old to do the interview dance SWE has become these days, etc).

Lets say I'm a small business and I want to produce a new logo for some marketing material. In the past I would of paid someone either via a platform or some local business to do it. That would of just been the cost of business.

Now since there is a lower cost technology, and I know my competition is using it, I should use it too else all else equal I'm losing margin compared to my competition.

It's happening in software development too. Its the reason they say "if you don't use AI you will be taken over by someone who does". It may be true; but that person may of wished the AI genie was never let out of the bottle.

Anecdotally its almost like they see them like mad scientists who are happy blowing up themselves and the world if they get to play with the new toy; almost childlike usually thinking they are doing "good" in the process. Which is seen as a sign of a lack of a type of intelligence/maturity by most people.

In general I think -> if I was not personally invested in this situation (i.e. another man on the street) what would be my immediate reaction to this? Would I still become a software engineer as an example? Even if it is doesn't come to past, given what I know now, would I take that bet with my life/career?

I think if people were honest with themselves sadly the answer for many would probably be "no". Most other professions wouldn't do this to themselves either; SWE is quite unique in this regard.