Hand built code is going away, and sooner than any of us who love that art are ready for.
Someone posted this as a concept to consider to a chat I am a part of, and the overall theme is one that is rampant in our industry currently.
https://lnkd.in/gA-WRhRg
Reading this article, I think it is very hand wavy. However, I think it's an interesting path we are on. The current "AI will replace X" pathos is being adopted by people who for the most part do not have the skills being considered. Your average exec in the average corporation likely never had those skills. Execs who did, say in an engineering company, might have worked on engineering projects a decade or two ago if ever. Still, the point of view is similar .. they have always looked at product teams (be they software, hardware, legal, etc) as they look at AI -- as a tool for an outcome. That is why they are equivalent.
Today, it feels wrong because it ignores what you actually need to do in order to make the current level of AI tooling actually work. That, however, will change at some point.
Those same people run these industries and choose the hiring budgets. They will make it happen. What currently looks like a cargo cult of ill informed founders and execs will continue until the capabilities actually do catch up to expectation. A less cynical take might be "fake it till you make it", if it were not costing you your ability to support your family.
The transformation will feel instant once we have AI tools that do not need you to have design expertise, know best practices .. or have an ounce of capability to do the actual work and actually do work well enough. The users of those will be users of industrial tools who don't need to know how they work because they just work. History suggests the majority of knowledge industries will fire their craftsmen and hire people to operate automated equipment. I hope the end of that tunnel for software looks a lot more like artists shaping intent than automated factory workers .. but that will take agency to make happen. Far more likely is industrialization.
Then the industry will move on, current workers will be dumped on unemployment and told to retrain. And then forgotten. Like carriage makers, craft guilds, coal miners, auto workers, steel workers, etc. We have a long history of this. Transformation is rough on the "resources" being transformed out of a career.
Many of us are still bargaining with these changes, complaining about AI's limitations, explaining how you can't replace an engineer, etc. Let it go, it will not help.
What's next?
.. because it probably won't be this.
