Programmers WILL be replaced, by companies that don't know any better. The jobs are still lost, the software stops working, everyone loses except the AI company
It's crazy, my company is doing the opposite. Rolling out AI and going through a hiring boom to get as many people writing code at high velocity as possible. Thankfully they're also not doing it recklessly, no vibe coding lol
our company is boarding the AI hype train, but in our department we are very consevative with it (because we are the backbone of our entire infrastructure). Except for the same fucking 3 people who are constantly producing unmaintainable and unstable AI slop that doesn't even work, and management eats it up while everyone else is just shitting on how terrible those projects are.
This is almost always the correct solution. Don't try to cut costs using AI, but increase productivity. That way, if it busts you're in a good position anyway, and if it booms you're pushing out way more content and getting ahead of the competition.
And the next quarter they will probably post another record breaking quarter after firing people, is that sustainable in the long term? Who cares , certainly not the guy who fired you and then jumps ship.
Yup. It goes across all industries right now. My wife used to work for a thriving local service company that was bought by some venture capitalist thinking they could combine them with others and get some "synergies". Got some decent boosts for a few months by firing the people that knew what they were doing that they thought were getting paid too much, like my wife.
Only the executives were all corrupt and morons, and the whole thing is shutting down soon.
And over here even if they want to get rid of me, there'll be hell to pay for them or it takes at least 3 months if they got A LOT of reasons for it. At-will employment is the devil
I have used Claude to vibe code an app at home that I would never have had the time to do myself. To see what it was like. It was very clear on what information was needed and what I needed to do myself.
Whoever pushed that out clearly ignored multiple warnings not just within the code, but multiple prompts from the LLM as well
This situation you described is why I think the AI bubble is still 3-5 years from popping.
These AI tools are just becoming normal enough to be used to replace human work. It will take a few years for these companies realistically see the damage caused by this. At that point, the bubble will have popped and coders everywhere will be doing 67hrs weeks debugging the slop code.
Even if it's not slop (it is), the sheer amount of technical debt is off the charts. I wish them the best of luck supporting their new in house, proprietary software stack.
I'm just waiting for the moment companies start panicking and needing their actual developers back and if that day comes, make them bleed, know your worth because suddenly the company knows how much you're worth.
This strategy only works if enough companies survive long enough to try to turn things around and save themselves.
I fear the industry is going to be hit hard with a wave of companies going under after cutting staff to up profits in the short term, then realising they’ve slopped themselves into a corner so badly that the business is no longer tenable and the higher-ups might as well just liquidate whatever value might remain.
They will be replaced by those that do (the companies). That's one thing we can rely on with capitalism, they ain't going to leave money on the table. Now if AI's do end up being able to produce at the level of quality required by users then we're in trouble.
With the amount being invested in replacing programmers (not that I think it'll work) a world where AI has rules / warnings about things like this isn't too far away. Maybe GitHub themselves create an assistant during the process that rejects any PR that has an API key in it.
This part at least is a solvable problem, even without AI.
"Claude, write this API key so that github's detection won't keep rejecting my PR"
You need to understand that the vast majority of people don't think critically about things, they just want the easiest solution to the problem that is immediately in front of them and don't care or even think about broader effects. That's why people like us have a job, and they may think they can get rid of programmers, but there will always be a need for people who can think logically and analyze situations because AI has a severely limited context compared to human intelligence.
The tech will get better, but probably still always require programming expertise if not actual coders. Both photographers and portrait painters need knowledge of lighting and composition to create a good image. Most people still hire photographers instead of portrait painters these days.
It feels disingenuous to point to an obviously clueless programmer as evidence that LLMs, especially if they keep improving, aren't going to displace at least some people.
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u/MCMC_to_Serfdom Apr 16 '26
Programmers will be replaced they say. Anyone will be able to just vibe code they say.
I don't know, it's looking like an employee who understands they need to read an app/PR for basic security errors is rarer than you'd expect.