I guess my genuine question is to the people who are saying this is a big deal and it will take our jobs. I am a bit lucky to where at the moment I am working in a "novel" field. Lets say though for the sake of argument that AI does come for SWE jobs. To be honest? I don't know what to do in that case, I have no backup plan, not enough to retire. The country I've lived in for 9 years is still through a work visa (hopefully at least that changes soon). I am just comfortable enough with my salary. If all that is pulled from under me, I lose my job tomorrow, I lose my profession, my visa, my home. I honestly would like to ask to the people who say this is and will come for us soon. Well OK, but what is your advice for someone like me? It's true society doesn't owe me anything, nobody does. So it is also just an answer that some of us will be dropped by the wayside. That's what happened before. Just curious what anyone's advice would be assuming they are right and it does take our jobs.
Check out my comments higher up in the thread (eg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35197613), I really do believe that GPT4+ will be primarily useful as augmenters for capable and dedicated engineers, rather than replacements. It's like a very eager and brilliant junior dev that can solve many problems that you throw at it, but still needs hand-holding, error-checking, and someone who knows how to piece the actual system together.
Thanks for the reply! I don’t know what the future holds. The country I live in will even just on the job train more programmers if need be. It is kind of nice in that sense. If what you say is right? Then for the most part everyone is happy. The problem is, if we assume the worst case scenario, that it does take all our jobs, well then what? To people with those opinions, my question is what do I do? What does anyone do?
We all need to save up money and think of a plan B. If there is no problem, worst case you'll have a bunch of money saved and a plan B you won't be using.
That’s not really an option for a lot of people outside of the US. The average SWE here makes 50K USD a year. Good luck saving up a safety net that large if AI is ready to take all our jobs. That’s kind of my point. Nobody has a good answer to the question IF AI does take SWE jobs, what then?
It really depends where you live I agree. If you live in Europe there's usually a generous unemployment benefits for quite awhile and the government will probably pay for you to learn a new skill. That's not a great scenario but its much better than if you live in India.
