r/learnprogramming • u/SpecterG_27 • 2h ago
AI is going to replace us?
I'm a junior in this world of programming and code. Recently I watched a video talking about programmers and how AI is doing everything and is changing completely the role, from write or review code to supervise AI but not taking an important role. In the video, the youtuber said that the role of software engineer is like a fabric. The programmer just supervise the AI, touch a few buttons and make sure that everything is going well. Basically, AI is taking our jobs.
I am a little concern about this situation, because I am studying Informatic Engineer and learning new skills to become a Backend Engineer or Cloud Engineer. I'm passionate about this world of computers and code.
What do you think? AI is taking our jobs and programmers are going to disappear?
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u/roger_ducky 2h ago
AI is good at implementing but sucks at planning.
Not to say you can’t brute force your way to a workable solution, but it’s gonna be expensive.
Essentially: AI are “robo-interns” right now.
We still need tech leads, or the project won’t go anywhere.
Frontier labs with effectively zero inference costs can do a little bit more than those outside, but they’re also incentivized to talk up how great that experience actually is, since they’d only get rich if people believe them.
This is not to say AI is useless. It will make entry level jobs fewer.
Still, we are still gonna hire some junior people or we eventually have no senior devs.
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u/Catadox 1h ago
Also they tend to build complexity. It looks and feels like it’s just a “complete and thorough” solution in isolation, but they don’t really integrate well so there are all sorts of fragile connections. And then since humans have a hard time knowing and following the code, you use the LLM to fix bugs, but they rarely think holistically and create more bugs while fixing the one you asked for.
Then you ask them to fix those bugs, and eventually they probably can, but usually they do it by adding more complexity instead of streamlining the code.
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u/roger_ducky 1h ago
That’s actually a symptom of them failing to read giant files. They eventually give up and just reimplement stuff “from scratch” so stuff will work how they wanted for sure.
Trick is actually to ensure files > 1000 lines gets broken up. Preferably into files around 500 lines or less.
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u/SEgopher 2h ago
Yes, AI is absolutely accelerating work and destroying the input pipeline (junior positions), but the result is that we senior+ engineers are doing 10x more. The job is still there. But it's absolutely not as fun as it was and there are plenty of people who have given up higher level thinking and allowing Claude to try and do everything with mixed results.
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u/Nxllify__ 2h ago
which makes me think eventually there will be a breaking point due to the lack of skill development from offloading all junior work, seniors retiring, skill atrophy, technical debt, etc. LLMs will never ever go away but we may see a shift away from full agentic slophouse development because it’s not sustainable for anything that isn’t basic crud
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u/SEgopher 2h ago
We'll see. I'm always surprised at how bad a system can become and still function, and really do mean that in a general sense, and of course the later they break the harder they are to fix. At the very least most places are still doing a "you commit the code, you own the code" so there is still some semblance of sanity left.
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u/Gtdef 2h ago
Without programmers, everything AI writes will only run on localhost ^^. The job will change, but it's not necessarily bad. As a programmer I love that I have an AI writing the boilerplate and I can focus on business logic without having to read documentation and examples for everything. As a professional.. well it can get iffy but changing times always come with a fair share of problems.
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u/Lotton 2h ago
Did carpentry go away when the table saw was invented? No it changed how they did the job.
Right now the issue is with carpentry if you tried to experiment but weren't good at it you could lose a finger (that's after a couple thousand dollars in initial costs for the saw). With AI, the barrier to entry and the risks are much lower so now people are trying it and making the rest look bad. In the past we were plagued by the phrase "so I got this idea for an app..." but now those dreaded idea men are using ai and crashing in their own right.
Short summary is we're in an awkward transition period where the field is evolving and everyone is trying to find their best way but the need for software is higher than ever
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u/WorstPapaGamer 2h ago
I think it’s how automation took over the automotive industry. It hits it hard and towns died because instead of needing 5000 workers they can get away with 1000 workers.
It’s a tool that can make you more productive. Of course they have those “dark factories” in china now that are completely automated so…… who knows what will happen 20-50 years from now.
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u/apocalypsebuddy 1h ago
“IDEs are going to replace us? With VSCode and others with all their plugins, the programmer just supervises the plugins and touches a few buttons instead of writing and compiling everything themselves.”
AI is definitely changing how programmers work, and it is augmenting the skills of developers who would have otherwise had a much harder time, but I think it will ultimately lead to more software and more software roles.
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u/Lost-Discount4860 1h ago
Will it replace programmers? I mean…AI can’t stop you from programming if that’s what you want to do. Is it ending a job title or career path? That’s a better question, one I’m afraid I can’t answer.
Let’s look at worst case scenario. At worst, AI makes the role of programmer or developer obsolete. The steam engine put thousands of people out of jobs, maybe more. Did we die because of the steam engine? No. The steam engine made more things possible and entirely new things sprang up that more than replaced any jobs that died. The electric motor replaced the steam engine (except for electricity generation), and the workplace became a much safer place. The personal computer (PC) put the ability to manipulate documents in the hands of executives (at the cost of quality), which obsoleted the typing pool.
And programming will be no different. I feel encouraged that by putting code in the hands of mere mortals that programming is democratized. You have a better way to get that killer web app that you can’t find software for, or now you can work on software without the cost of time learning code or chasing down exceptions.
Speaking of exceptions, perfection in code generation is a long way off. People who have the skill of programming can make up for what AI does NOT do well. I think what’s more likely is more people will need to learn to code since the responsibility for making reliable code will be on EVERYONE. The invention of the PC might have obsoleted the typing pool, but that only made it necessary for more people to learn to type and develop their own advanced communication etiquette and skill. Python is king of automation, so while there won’t be a need for specialized programmers anymore, EVERYONE will need to learn when scripting is maximally useful for whatever situation. Sure, you can just ask AI for code, but how do you even know what to ask for? If something breaks, can you fix it? Can you maintain code long-term, something AI cannot currently do? How do you respond with a constantly dynamic tech landscape?
And it’s those kinds of questions that should assure us all that EVEN IF we’re all replaceable by AI, it’s nothing to panic over. It just means there will be more roles to fill as new things become possible.
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u/Individual_Ad_5333 1h ago
Its just another layer of abstraction imo.
Isn't that sort of what has happened with software engineering over the years we have been further abstracted away from the nuts and bolts.
We will always need an understanding of the nuts and bolts but the tools we use to manipulate them will change
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u/hooli-ceo 2h ago
No. The way in which we build software will certainly change, but there will only be MORE software in the future, so there will always be more software work.