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The Dumbest Move in Tech Right Now: Laying Off Developers Because of AI
(ppaolo.substack.com)
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That middle graph is absolute fucking bullshit. AI is not fucking ever going to replace 75% of developers or I've been working way too fucking hard for way to little pay these past 30 years. It might let you cut staff 5-10% because it enables folks to accomplish certain things a bit faster.
Christ on a fucking crutch. Ask developers who are currently using AI (not the ones working for AI companies) how much time and effort it actually saves them. They will tell you.
It does save a lot of time and effort, and does lead to better code in the hands of a skilled developer. Writing out thorough test code and actually doing proper test driven development suddenly becomes a lot less onerous.
Their graph also has no numbers and is just there to help visualize the difference they're referring to.
To the first part, I agree. A skilled developer who can quickly separate the wheat from the chaff can get a boost out of AI. I'd put it at around 5-10%, but I've had some tiny projects where it was 400% boost. I think it's a small net gain.
As for your second point I just have to disagree. There are no numbers but it is clearly selling the idea of the majority of code being AI generated, and that's bullshit whether it's an outright lie with numbers, or merely vaguely misleading. It's like when someone cuts off the bottom of a graph to make relative change look huge. It wants people to glance at it, get the wrong idea, and move off without curiosity.
It takes less time to just write code than to babysit an artificial dumbass.
No it doesn't.
Oh I'm glad you're the be all know all arbiter of all software developers, and not just some grump on the internet.