The AI arms race is going to destroy software engineering forever

3 点作者 concerned_大约 2 年前

The last few months have seen a massive shift in attention to LLMs obviously, and the AI arms race seems to have officially broken out of its research labs into the "real" world.There has been tons of ink spilled on how this will affect and change the world in general, but before AI can do any of that it's going to cause a massive, relentless distraction for every software engineer currently employed, and every place that produces software products.At first, AI adoption may look like a value add, with battle lines being drawn between the haves and the have not.But with significant proliferation and deployment, it's likely that the building of black boxes that nobody truly understands with become the norm.During the deployment phase, attention and resources will be diverted from software development teams doing coding to specialized consultants, who will not reveal their methods or maybe even their source code to maintain leverage over the competition.This will inevitably lead to the discreditation of software engineers and software engineering itself. The software industry will experience a prolonged dark age where writing code will be scoffed at, bot maintainers will be scarce, and things may work but they will always be slightly wrong with no verifiable results that anyone can observe based on input.Prompt engineers will be everywhere and paid something close to minimum wage once handwritten code is shunned.Software shops will start to resemble their historical predecessor: the typing pool, and could become what was once considered "women's work" again.The disturbing features of all of this pale in comparison to the end game scenario, because there likely be no way back for software engineering.In this case the "haves" will have so much concentrated power in relatively few hands, that AI overlords will not be able to resist enslaving entire masses of people who will be powerless to stop them, as government control structures are infected with for profit private systems, which cannot be escaped.Because content sources aka books will no longer be trusted, people will ignore them, making the maintenance and belief in legal systems obsolete, leading to anarchy, and reactionary govt controls implemented at all levels of society.Individual emotional experiences will become muted or cease to exist. Words such as "fun","love" and "friendship" will fall out of use as they will no longer be experienced.AI powers will eventually go to war with each other using AI itself to do the fighting, and the planet earth will be systematically destroyed leaving nothing but nuclear winter.The end.

8 条评论

fbrncci大约 2 年前

I see your concerns, and I find them very valid, am I am happy that things are this way. I think you are right about some things, but probably very wrong about the outcome here. Software development is about to enter a philosophical stage, on the idea of what it means to be a software developer at all. Even if Prompting becomes close to perfect, or in between perfect and what we have now; there is still going to be a need for people to build/prompt something. There are going to be black boxes, but very unlikely for everything.I think that a good software developer who knows what he is doing, will look very different from a "software shop" stitching together prompts. Shops doing this, as in the past, will be the low hanging fruits, and at some time will stop being valuable due to sole developers, knowing what they are doing, rather than throwing stuff together.In my opinion, this type of sole software developer, does now know how to engineer with prompts, take care of deployments, tie into business needs, analytics and sales, within the same (or even less) time it would take him to develop an app before LLM's or AI. This would not be a status-quo, but I would assume, a lot of developers, who are good in their field now, could get their in the future with AI & LLM's.Now imagine a company staffed with those developers, it would be a completely different playing field, but not so much different from today's world, were developers to date have been dealing with ever increasing complexity, building bigger and larger stuff.

flappyeagle大约 2 年前

Nah. That’s all unfounded FUD. Go have a walk outside. It’s good for de-stressing

YourDadVPN大约 2 年前

Since current AI only generates code that has some similarity to code it's seen before, I suspect this will only be an issue for people doing low code or making relatively simple CRUD applications and the like, at least for the foreseeable future. People working on software that requires a lot of domain knowledge won't lose their jobs. Salaries could go down if the demand for software engineers drops, but if the number of new engineers also falls then salaries could stay around the same level, and even increase for niche roles. In the long term we might get into a situation where a small number of engineers are trained to provide training data for the AI, which would be interesting. All of this ks of course pure speculation.

codegeek大约 2 年前

I may be naive or a simpleton but we have heard this before when "robots" where going to take over the world.AI is hot right now and EVERYONE is getting into it. Great. I just don't think this euphoria will last. There will be some great things done but by the time dust settles, software engineers will always have a job.

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brookst大约 2 年前

In the last few months, there has been a significant shift in focus towards the widespread use of the printing press. The spread of this revolutionary technology has sparked debates about its impact on society, particularly in the realm of religious institutions.Initially, churches and their clergy opposed the printing press as they believed it threatened their authority and control over religious teachings. They feared that widespread access to religious texts would lead to misinterpretations and a loss of power. However, as the printing press proliferated, it became apparent that this technology was not only a threat but also a potential opportunity for those who embraced it.During this period of rapid technological adoption, attention and resources shifted from traditional religious education and practices to the mass production of religious texts. Skilled scribes found themselves replaced by specialized consultants who guarded their printing techniques and knowledge, becoming indispensable to the process.As a result, the once-revered profession of scribing began to lose its prestige. Scribes became increasingly scarce as their skills were devalued, and religious texts were at times filled with errors due to the new and imperfect printing process. The once-elite profession of scribing was reduced to a menial task, and those who persisted in the trade found themselves facing diminishing wages and respect.As the printing press continued to transform the world, the power dynamics shifted dramatically. Those who controlled the technology accumulated immense influence, and the once-powerful religious institutions found themselves struggling to maintain their authority. In this new world, the masses felt increasingly disconnected from their spiritual leaders and turned to the printed word for guidance.This disconnection from religious institutions led to a decline in the importance of traditional legal structures, resulting in social unrest and chaos. The once-strong bonds between people weakened, and emotions like joy, love, and friendship became less prominent in daily life.As powerful individuals and organizations continued to vie for control over the printing press and the influence it wielded, society found itself on the brink of collapse. Wars were fought over this newfound power, and the world was plunged into darkness and destruction.In the end, the very technology that had once promised to enlighten society and bring knowledge to the masses ultimately led to its downfall, leaving behind a world in ruins, unrecognizable from its former glory.

FrenchDevRemote大约 2 年前

"AI overlords will not be able to resist enslaving entire masses of people who will be powerless to stop them"that's what I don't get about this kind of postswhat's the point of enslaving people if AI does all the heavy lifting?

streetcat1大约 2 年前

Are you a software developer? There will be a huge demand for fixing the bugs that the AI will create. Also, what happen if the AI generated system need a new feature, who will create it, the AI?

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iab大约 2 年前

But what’s the downside

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