WSJ: What Will AI Do to Your Job? Take a Look at What It’s Already Doing to Coders

[1NJParent]

Want to know if artificial intelligence is going to eliminate millions of jobs? The first place to look is the industry that birthed the technology.

AI seems set to do to computer programming—and possibly other kinds of so-called knowledge work—what automation has done to other jobs, from the factory floor and the warehouse, to the checkout aisle and the call center. In those industries, the end result of widespread automation has been the elimination of countless roles—and their replacement with ones that require either relatively little skill and knowledge, or a great deal more, with workers at either end of this spectrum being rewarded accordingly.

In other words, software is eating the software industry.
…
Coding was early to the generative AI boom that has captured the world’s attention since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November. While generative AI is typically thought of as a tool for creating text, images and even video that look as though humans created them, it’s also being used by programmers to generate code, and to automatically test it. Microsoft made GitHub Copilot—a programming tool that uses technology from OpenAI—widely available in June 2022, five months before OpenAI made public its ChatGPT bot.

Tech layoffs over the past year, driven by macroeconomic trends, happen to have come just as genuinely useful AI for coding has arrived. For many young coders, the timing is unfortunate. Data from workforce-analytics company Revelio Labs indicate that companies have tended to fire their newest employees, and that in 2023, software engineers represent the largest share of people laid off by tech companies. The few tech job openings that remain, meanwhile, are being snapped up by still-in-demand, more-experienced software engineers.

The rise of the kind of AI that can make more experienced programmers more productive could mean that companies with hiring freezes wait longer to start hiring again, and startups looking to survive the current slowdown in venture-capital investing opt not to move forward with current hiring plans.

“If I were an investor, and my companies were thinking about hiring hundreds of engineers, I’d say, well, maybe instead you can use AI to be more productive,” says Prashanth Chandrasekar, chief executive of Stack Overflow, a company that maintains a user-generated repository of questions and answers for programmers.

Stack Overflow’s latest survey of about 90,000 programmers, conducted in May, found that 70% are already using, or plan to use, AI tools in their work. Of those, a third of programmers said the number one reason they use such tools is that technology makes them more productive.

Many tech companies have promised to continue growing, despite their layoffs. Since the spring, investors have been piling into stocks perceived as being at the forefront of the AI boom, such as Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Apple and Meta Platforms.

On one hand, these companies will have to continue hiring developers with skills in building AI. These engineers are currently the best-paid and the most in-demand, says Josh Brenner, CEO at Hired, a tech-jobs marketplace founded in 2013.

On the other hand, there’s Braintrust.

The worker-owned talent network represents about 360,000 freelance developers, and counts Nike, Meta and Google among its more than 1,500 clients. CEO Adam Jackson aims to double Braintrusts’ revenue in the next two years, without adding a single employee.

The company is building its own internal AI, trained on all of its job postings, developer résumés, and successful matches between the two. This system will take over more of the work of matching companies seeking developers with those freelancers, says Jackson. It will use many of the same technologies that make possible other generative AIs, like ChatGPT.

“That productivity creates more value for our network of engineers,” he says. “It came out of nowhere thanks largely to AI.”

Other industry- and company-specific AIs are likely to be built and used in a wide variety of workplaces.

Anytime you’re creating an online marketplace to match two parties—whether that’s home buyers and sellers, or ride-hailing drivers and riders—AI is a way to increase productivity without adding to your company’s head count, says Jackson.

Many experienced developers I spoke with expressed skepticism about the ability of AI coding tools to take over the most essential tasks of programming, including designing solutions to complex problems, and understanding existing libraries of code at companies that have been building up their systems for years, or even decades.

That said, those who are already using such systems think they could eliminate the need for certain tasks that are currently generally handed off to inexperienced and early-career programmers.

“Simple off the shelf issues can be tackled relatively easily now,” says Jerome Choo, head of growth at AI-enabled, business-focused search startup Diffbot. “I can see hiring skew more senior because of this.”

It’s happened before. The job- and wage-polarizing effects of automation on an industry can interrupt the usual ladder of hiring and development, warns Yossi Sheffi, a professor of engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose latest book is on the future of work. In manufacturing, that has meant some countries—like Germany—have created a dual education system that pushes people to do both apprenticeship and university study within the typical four years of college.

With automation finally coming for knowledge work—in the form of AI—a similar rethinking of employment and education for early-career white collar workers might be necessary, he says.

“One of the main challenges of the future is how to hire junior people who don’t yet have the experience to step in when the machine doesn’t work,” says Dr. Sheffi.

In Stack Overflow’s survey of developers, there’s a difference between how experienced and junior coders said they use AI code-completion tools, like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and the many startups based on it, such as Bito. While experienced programmers said their number one reason for using such tools is productivity, junior programmers said their primary use was for education—that is, to absorb what the AI already knows.

What Will AI Do to Your Job? Take a Look at What It’s Already Doing to Coders - WSJ

[seal16]

Few software engineers I spoke to don’t seem too concerned. Have you tried to use ChatGPT? The more you use it the less you get concerned that it will take someone’s jobs at least in near future.

[Knowsstuff]

Every software engineer I also spoke with said the same. But they do see in the future it will be useful to them.

[DadOfJerseyGirl]

Yes. ChatGPT can help generate code for routine tasks or for implementing well known algorithms and software patterns. Saves time.

But software companies get ahead of their competition by solving new problems or doing something better/quicker/cheaper than has been done before. ChatGPT can’t come up with new innovative code on its own.

[simba9]

I’m a retired programmer. I’ve been looking into ChatGPT and generative AI to see how it works, and if I was a still a programmer, I wouldn’t be worried about it. It doesn’t write code for you, but it does make it easier and quicker to find code templates and snippets that you can use in your programs. If anything, new software jobs will be created in the development of AI applications.

People have been saying for decades that software development jobs were at risk because of things like offshoring, AI and software development tools, yet the number of software jobs has only increased.

[Rivet2000]

A while back, both my S and I subscribed to ChatGPT.

I have not written any serious code for over 5 years, but I “asked” ChatGPT to generate some C++ code for various sorting algorithms and it quickly presented well formatted code to perform the sorts. I then asked to maximize the sorts assuming certain data characteristics and it adjusted from a generic sort to optimized sorts based on the assumed input data. Each time I copied/pasted into and emacs window, compiled with gcc - no problems. So, not too bad, but also pretty easy task.

My S, asked for much more complex Python code. And, according to him, it was an outright fail. Additionally, he told me that using ChatGPT is outlawed where he works because they are concerned with IP loss. They are, however, looking for versions that could be maintained internally and trained specifically on their code base. In that way it’s thought that it could help with productivity.

On other things like generating marketing material and generating emails with certain tones, it works remarkable well.

In general I think there will not be much impact for software developers in the near term. But soon, it will begin to eat away at developers that perform less specialized work. I don’t think there will be widespread job loss, but productivity gains will reduce head count needs.

[DadSays]

Saw a VC guy on CNBC a few weeks back being interviewed about the AI impact. His advice was: “Don’t bother going to law school”. He felt many aspects of law were going to be low hanging fruit for AI replacement.

[1NJParent]

Founder and CEO of Stability AI is predicting that “There will be no programmers in five years.”

Stability AI CEO: There Will Be No (Human) Programmers in Five Years - Decrypt

I’m pretty sure there will be still be programmers (particularly the most skilled programmers) in 5 years, but probably a lot fewer programmers.

[Eeyore123]

I am more concerned about what will happen to the trucking and call center industries. They can be easily replaced and there are a lot of people employed.

[ucbalumnus]

@1NJParent

I’m pretty sure there will be still be programmers (particularly the most skilled programmers) in 5 years, but probably a lot fewer programmers.

@Eeyore123

I am more concerned about what will happen to the trucking and call center industries. They can be easily replaced and there are a lot of people employed.

What is the societal implication if large percentages of people in various professions can no longer do useful work because AI does it less expensively, and retraining for other professions takes more time than it takes for AI to make those other professions obsolete?

[1NJParent]

It’s a question that has no answer at the moment, other than the discussion on universal basic income, which could be a part of the solution but would open a new can of worms.

For students who haven’t yet started college, they probably should think about the implications. They need to acquire specialized skills that aren’t replaceable, or go into fields where their knowledge/skills are better suited than AI or can complement AI.

[ChoatieMom]

The military is seriously considering the effects of ever larger numbers of citizens un- or less than gainfully employed as history has shown us what happens when the masses get desperate/restless…

The concern is that AI will widen the skill/need disparity faster than current economies can absorb the excess. The speed will exacerbate an already threatening divide and is a national security concern.

[Eeyore123]

I would agree that the early/mid transition to WALL-E world is the dangerous part.

[Darcy123]

I have zero issue with the call center people reading from a script being replaced. If these were actual customer service representatives - it would be a different discussion - but I have been burned way too many times by a script reading representative where I would honestly be way more happy with the chatgt version

[1NJParent]

Remember ChatGPT was terrible at math last November? Things have changed dramatically in six short months:

A.I. Is Coming for Mathematics, Too

[gwnorth]

Let’s not confuse “software development” and “coding”. Maybe a low level programmer who went through a coding bootcamp will have their job eliminated, but software development requires a much higher skillset. As for call centre positions, much of that work has been offshored to much lower cost jurisdictions. There won’t be a big push yet to eliminate those types of roles until the profits that can be gained through labour arbitrage start to shrink. For truck drivers, I don’t seen fully autonomous driving replacing them anytime soon.

I agree that what will occur is a much wider divide between skilled and unskilled work with much less semi-skilled in the middle.

[ucbalumnus]

@gwnorth

agree that what will occur is a much wider divide between skilled and unskilled work with much less semi-skilled in the middle.

But also, AI and other automation will move the boundaries between “skilled”, “semi skilled”, and “unskilled” work upward. I.e., some skilled work will become devalued into semi skilled work, and some semi skilled work will become devalued into unskilled work (and some work will disappear entirely). It means that the barrier to entry into the more valuable skilled work will continue to get higher in terms of the education and training needed, reducing the number of people who can get into skilled work.

[Eeyore123]

@gwnorth

As for call centre positions, much of that work has been offshored to much lower cost jurisdictions. There won’t be a big push yet to eliminate those types of roles until the profits that can be gained through labour arbitrage start to shrink.

Every large bank is working on this. Once they crack it the floodgates will open.

[gwnorth]

Yes once they crack it.

My husband works for a bank here in Canada. They are starting to explore ways in which the new AI technology can be beneficial. Call centres are one, but as mentioned, much of that work is currently offshored to lower labour cost jurisdictions so not too much impetus to replace it just yet. Much of the onshore call centre work is more complicated or subject to government regulation so time will tell how much of that work can be replaced. It’s just starting to be investigated but given the glacial pace that old world bricks and mortar banks move it’s hard to tell how soon AI would have an impact. Perhaps in the more nimbler fintech sphere this would have more effecting.

[gwnorth]

@ucbalumnus

It means that the barrier to entry into the more valuable skilled work will continue to get higher in terms of the education and training needed, reducing the number of people who can get into skilled work.

I agree. I already see this now with the greater push towards students continuing to grad school. The number of students pursuing graduate and professional studies has seen a considerable increase in growth here in the past 10 years or so. Part of that is due to international students and immigration, but a large part is the growth in students pursuing STEM disciplines that often require a higher level of training beyond undergrad in order to secure well paying and interesting employment. AI/ML/CS/DS master’s programs in particular have become in high demand.