Appealing, but this is coming from someone smart/thoughtful. No offence to 'rest of world', but I think that most people have felt this way for years. And realistically in a year, there won't be any people who can keep up.
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I've heard the same claim every year since GPT-3.
It's still just as irrational as it was then.
They're already far faster than anybody on HN could ever be. Whether it takes another five years or ten, in that span of time nobody on HN will be able to keep up with the top tier models. It's not irrational, it's guaranteed. The progress has been extraordinary and obvious, the direction is certain, the outcome is certain. All that is left is to debate whether it's a couple of years or closer to a decade.
The bottom 50% of software jobs in the US are worth somewhere around $200-$300 billion per year (salary + benefits + recruiting + training/education), one trillion dollars every five years minimum. That's the opportunity. It's beyond gigantic. They will keep pursuing the elimination of those jobs until it's done. It won't take long from where we're at now, it's a 3-10 year debate, rather than a 10-20 year debate. And that's just the bottom 50%, the next quarter group above that will also be eliminated over time.
$115k + $8-12k healthcare + stock + routine operating costs + training + recruitment. That's the ballpark median two years ago. Surveys vary, from BLS to industry, two to four million software developers, software engineers, so on and so forth. Now eliminate most of them.
Your AI coding agent circa 2030 will work 24/7. It has a superior context to human developers. It never becomes emotional or angry or crazy. It never complains about being tired. It never quits due to working conditions. It never unionizes. It never leaves work. It never gets cancer or heart disease. It's not obese, it doesn't have diabetes. It doesn't need work perks. It doesn't need time off for vacations. It doesn't need bathrooms. It doesn't need to fit in or socialize. It has no cultural match concerns. It doesn't have children. It doesn't have a mortgage. It doesn't hate its bosses. It doesn't need to commute. It gets better over time. It only exists to work. It is the ultimate coding monkey. Goodbye human.
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.
Doing what? What would we need software for when we have sufficiently good AI? AI would become "The Final Software", just give it input data, tell it what of data transform you want and it will give you the output, no need for new software ever again.