I look forward to AI slop making the next group of senior software engineers make complete crap because they have no idea what good software actually is.
There’s going to be another market for consultants cleaning up these moron’s mess once again.
Well, think of the bigger picture. After 3-4 generations, there won’t even BE consultants to clean up the mess. No one will know how to code at all. It’s ALL going to be AI.
There will be consultants. Most will be charlatans with an LLM, but there will always be a small number of people who learn the craft because they’re interested… and they will command high salaries by those who understand quality engineering.
It’s not like this is the first time our society has done this. We did it to textiles, then we did it to farming in general.
The difference here is that automation of thought is what’s being promised, but that’s not what’s being delivered. But then, for many of its applications, real thought was never needed in the first place.
Anyway, back to my actual point: manual software development will become a niche hobby like using a hand loom. The skills will survive, but more as a curiosity than a common career path.
I hope I’m wrong, but it all depends on how long it takes the bubble to burst. If the LLM companies get a critical mass of dependence before it does, this will be the result.
I’ll believe that when I see software written by an LLM in production for 5 years. The code they write can’t really be iterated upon, so any time you want to alter behavior or refactoring, you essentially have to write that section again with the new design.
Maybe that will pan out in time, but so far all I’ve seen is marketing out extremely far ahead of reality, and that’s with today’s VC subsidized pricing. It threatens to increase in price from here, and further advancement is expected by many experts to yield diminishing returns now that the training pool is exhausted.
I look forward to AI slop making the next group of senior software engineers make complete crap because they have no idea what good software actually is.
There’s going to be another market for consultants cleaning up these moron’s mess once again.
Well, think of the bigger picture. After 3-4 generations, there won’t even BE consultants to clean up the mess. No one will know how to code at all. It’s ALL going to be AI.
There will be consultants. Most will be charlatans with an LLM, but there will always be a small number of people who learn the craft because they’re interested… and they will command high salaries by those who understand quality engineering.
It’s not like this is the first time our society has done this. We did it to textiles, then we did it to farming in general.
The difference here is that automation of thought is what’s being promised, but that’s not what’s being delivered. But then, for many of its applications, real thought was never needed in the first place.
Anyway, back to my actual point: manual software development will become a niche hobby like using a hand loom. The skills will survive, but more as a curiosity than a common career path.
I hope I’m wrong, but it all depends on how long it takes the bubble to burst. If the LLM companies get a critical mass of dependence before it does, this will be the result.
I’ll believe that when I see software written by an LLM in production for 5 years. The code they write can’t really be iterated upon, so any time you want to alter behavior or refactoring, you essentially have to write that section again with the new design.
Maybe that will pan out in time, but so far all I’ve seen is marketing out extremely far ahead of reality, and that’s with today’s VC subsidized pricing. It threatens to increase in price from here, and further advancement is expected by many experts to yield diminishing returns now that the training pool is exhausted.