The way I look at it is I just need to get through the next year or so. I also don't believe AI is going to replace everyone, but I do believe that a lot of "leaders" are going to make cuts. They all read the same blogs and listen to the same podcasts and once one makes a move they seem to tend to follow each other.
Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part but I still don't see AI replacing absolutely everyone. As someone who I'd say tends to be in the upper 20% of performers but not setting the world on fire I'm not too worried about my job completely disappearing but I am worried in the short term about layoffs and chaos when loads of people are trying to find jobs at the same time.
Yes, my previous employer listens to these podcasts. After some random minor disagreement he fired me on a whim, and is now happily adding LLM-generated pasta to his spaghetti clusterf*ck on a daily basis. Throughput baby!
Everytime I hear that AI will replace someone I want to ask a question:
Okay, if AI can replace engineer with their Manager, what is stopping replacing manager with their managers and so on until CTO? or if we go with a different direction, AI replacing engineers with PMs, but then PM can be replaced by Solution Architects or Sales people, go even further customer can just create a meeting with AI agent, explain their needs and you don't need PM/SA/Engineers
Lets go even further instead of someone in the company explaining to AI, what if AI explains to another AI their company needs?
The logical conclusion I've come to is that the world will be divided into two types of people in the future: entrepreneurs with an army of AI employees, and the unemployed. Presumably those entrepreneurs are mainly just selling to other entrepreneurs, since the unemployed don't really have any resources to buy their products and services.
Sometimes I wonder if what will actually happen, is that we will have very small startups, essentially a C-Suite but with actual coding skills and domain knowledge, who build new companies using AI that end up gaining an advantage over the incumbents and force them out of business. Indirectly you're replaced by AI. I could see the drasticity of the changes to culture and workflow that AI demands being too much for most legacy companies to handle. For instance, there are still a shockingly large number of companies relying on seriously dated software and paper based systems.
It'd be nice to have a company with only CTO-level engineers, but no one can afford that or even find enough workers at a certain scale, regardless of pay.
It makes sense that with AI, you can have architects who haven't written code in 5 years produce acceptable code, but I don't know many people high up the chain who'd say they have the time or desire for that.
Until your level's backlog is empty, you'll always find something better to do than the tasks of your lower-level colleagues, and it'll never become empty.
> It'd be nice to have a company with only CTO-level engineers, but no one can afford that
The point I was trying to make is that, if AI is accurate for Engineering work, why do we think its not accurate for PM job, if it is accurate for PM job, then it should be accurate for others as well.
Subsequently, it makes agent swarms accurate.
So you will have 1 CEO talking and creating the product, then expose another channel to customers where customer agents talk to the company agent.
Problem is, AI is not accurate and problems accumulate, this is why you need engineers, same applies to PMs, if you solely rely on AI writing product docs, mistakes accumulate and your engineers will build totally different product
Honestly, it's easier to replace a manager than an individual contribuitor. Most of a managers output is in reporting, approvals and decision making. These do require a lot of knowledge, and I don't think AI would be great at it but think of the cost savings.
The way I look at it is I just need to get through the next year or so. I also don't believe AI is going to replace everyone, but I do believe that a lot of "leaders" are going to make cuts. They all read the same blogs and listen to the same podcasts and once one makes a move they seem to tend to follow each other.
Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part but I still don't see AI replacing absolutely everyone. As someone who I'd say tends to be in the upper 20% of performers but not setting the world on fire I'm not too worried about my job completely disappearing but I am worried in the short term about layoffs and chaos when loads of people are trying to find jobs at the same time.
What happens after the next year then? Or if only top 10-5% performers stay (and that's in combo with AI).
Yes, my previous employer listens to these podcasts. After some random minor disagreement he fired me on a whim, and is now happily adding LLM-generated pasta to his spaghetti clusterf*ck on a daily basis. Throughput baby!
Or a manager will not be needed anymore with no reports to manage.
Everytime I hear that AI will replace someone I want to ask a question:
Okay, if AI can replace engineer with their Manager, what is stopping replacing manager with their managers and so on until CTO? or if we go with a different direction, AI replacing engineers with PMs, but then PM can be replaced by Solution Architects or Sales people, go even further customer can just create a meeting with AI agent, explain their needs and you don't need PM/SA/Engineers
Lets go even further instead of someone in the company explaining to AI, what if AI explains to another AI their company needs?
The logical conclusion I've come to is that the world will be divided into two types of people in the future: entrepreneurs with an army of AI employees, and the unemployed. Presumably those entrepreneurs are mainly just selling to other entrepreneurs, since the unemployed don't really have any resources to buy their products and services.
Sometimes I wonder if what will actually happen, is that we will have very small startups, essentially a C-Suite but with actual coding skills and domain knowledge, who build new companies using AI that end up gaining an advantage over the incumbents and force them out of business. Indirectly you're replaced by AI. I could see the drasticity of the changes to culture and workflow that AI demands being too much for most legacy companies to handle. For instance, there are still a shockingly large number of companies relying on seriously dated software and paper based systems.
Time/working hours and pay.
It'd be nice to have a company with only CTO-level engineers, but no one can afford that or even find enough workers at a certain scale, regardless of pay.
It makes sense that with AI, you can have architects who haven't written code in 5 years produce acceptable code, but I don't know many people high up the chain who'd say they have the time or desire for that.
Until your level's backlog is empty, you'll always find something better to do than the tasks of your lower-level colleagues, and it'll never become empty.
> It'd be nice to have a company with only CTO-level engineers, but no one can afford that
The point I was trying to make is that, if AI is accurate for Engineering work, why do we think its not accurate for PM job, if it is accurate for PM job, then it should be accurate for others as well.
Subsequently, it makes agent swarms accurate.
So you will have 1 CEO talking and creating the product, then expose another channel to customers where customer agents talk to the company agent.
Problem is, AI is not accurate and problems accumulate, this is why you need engineers, same applies to PMs, if you solely rely on AI writing product docs, mistakes accumulate and your engineers will build totally different product
Honestly, it's easier to replace a manager than an individual contribuitor. Most of a managers output is in reporting, approvals and decision making. These do require a lot of knowledge, and I don't think AI would be great at it but think of the cost savings.