Do you want to be a jobless weaver, or an engineer building mechanical looms for a higher pay than the weaver got?
You could even go back to punch cards if you want to. Literally nobody forcing you to not use it for your own fun.
But LLMs are a multiplier in many mundane tasks (I'd say about 80+% of software development for businesses), so not using them is like fighting against using a computer because you like writing by hand.
Happy to hate myself but earn OK money for OK hours.
An LLM is more like outsourcing to a consultancy. Results may vary.
Tools and systems which increase productivity famously always put everyone out of a job, which is why after a couple centuries of industrial revolution we're all unemployed.
"AI" is the latest iteration of snake oil that is foisted upon us by management. The problem is not "AI" per se, but the amount of of friction and productivity loss that comes with it.
Most of the productivity loss comes from being forced to engage with it and push back against that nonsense. One has to learn the hype language, debunk it, etc.
Why do you think IT has gotten better? Amazon had a better and faster website with far better search and products 20 years ago. No amount of "AI" will fix that.
Depends on the context. You have to keep in mind: it is not a goal of our society or economic system to provide you with a stable, rewarding job. In fact, the incentives are to take that away from you ASAP.
Before software engineers go celebrate this tech, they need realize they're going to end up like rust-belt factory workers the day after the plant closed. They're not special, and society won't be any kinder to them.
> ...and even wiser to be in charge of and operate the replacement.
You'll likely only get to do that if your boss doesn't know about it.
Don’t let cynics rule your country. Go vote. There’s no rule that things have to stay awful.
We seem to agree as this is more or less exactly the my point. Striving to keep the status quo is a futile path. Eventually things change. Be ready. The best advice I've ever got work (and maybe even life) wise is to always have alternatives. If you don't have alternatives, you literally have no choice.
Personally I’m thrilled that I can get trivial, one-off programs developed for a few cents and the cost of a clear written description of the problem. Engaging internal developers or consulting developers to do anything at all is a horrible experience. I would waste weeks on politics, get no guarantees, and waste thousands of dollars and still hear nonsense like, “you want a form input added to a web page? Aw shucks, that’s going to take at least another month” or “we expect to spend a few days a month maintaining a completely static code base” from some clown billing me $200/hr.
I hate AI code assistants, not because they suck, but because they work. The writing is on the wall.
If we aren't working on our own replacements, we'll be the ones replaced by somebody else's vibe code, and we have no labor unions that could plausibly fight back against this.
So become a Vibe Coder and keep working, or take the "prudent" approach you mention - and become unemployed.
This "vibe coding" seems just another way to say that people spend more time refining the output of these tools over and over again that what they would normally code.
But there's going to be an inflection point - soon - as things continue to improve. The industry is going to change rapidly.
Now is the time to either get ready for that - by being ahead of the curve, at least by being familiar with the tooling - or switch careers and cede your job to somebody who will play ball.
I don't like any of this, but I see it as inevitable.
