My experience with software development is maybe different than yours. There's a massive amount of not-yet-built software that can improve peoples' lives, even in teeny tiny ways. Like 99.999% of what should exist, doesn't.
Building things faster with LLMs makes me more capable. It (so far) has not taken work away from the people I work with. It has made them more capable. We can all build better tools, and faster than we did 12 months ago.
Automation is disruptive to peoples' lives. I get that. It decreases the value of some hard earned skills. Developer automation, in my life at least, has also increased the value of other peoples' skills. I don't believe it's anti worker to build more tools for builders.
Overall I think we would all be happier if efficient machines take away the drudgery of our daily work and allow us to focus on things that really matter to us. . . as long as our basic needs are met.
The days are numbered where humans are sitting typing out code themselves.
It's akin to the numbered days of type writer secretaries of the 20th century.
We agree on this completely, however you and I know there are plenty of people without jobs in the world who could be employed to do this work. You are spending your finite amount of time on earth working with services that are trying to squeeze the job market (they've said this openly) rather than spending it increasing the welfare of workers by giving them work.
> Automation is disruptive to peoples' lives.
You know the difference between automation and the goals of these companies. You know that they don't want to make looms that increase the productivity of workers, they want to replace the worker so they never have to pay wages again.
I'm sure your poor understanding of the history of improved tooling, like "type writer secretaries", will be a soft comfort in the future.
Nope, I've been doing it for 16 years.
It's more than evident that software has automated away all kinds of wage labor from the aforementioned typist pools to Hollywood special effects model-makers.
What's different now is that it is actually the software creators’ labor that is in danger of automation (I think this is easily overstated but it is obviously true to some degree).
I get that it feels different for us now that OUR ox is the one being gored. And I do think there will be no end of negative externalities from the turn towards AI. But none of that refutes the above respondent's point?
1. Typists are still around and so are special effects model-makers. 2. People who program aren't in danger of automation. 3. These services are entirely unsustainable, they will absolutely not last at their current pace.
The premise of this entire work, detailed by the creator, is to utilize a program to reduce the amount of work a programmer is required to do. They believe ultimately, like most results of improved automation, that this will result in more things we can work on because we have more time. I agree that this would likely be the case! We could also simply make more programmers, could we not? Why haven't we? Do the 18k people homeless in my city tonight not deserve a shot at learning a skill before we even think about making the work easier per person?
Finally, and more to the point, genAI is built by and designed to eliminate workers entirely. The money that goes into those services funds billionaires who seek to completely and totally annihilate the concept of the proletariat. When I make a tool that helps workers at my job do their job better I am not looking to eliminate that person from the company.