Comment by hintymad
2 days ago
I think the key question is what new or unique problems we need to solve. Unique problems demand unique designs and implementations, which can't be threatened by vibe coding, which requires software craftsmanship. That said, AI-assisted coding should still improve our productivity, therefore reducing the average number of engineers per project. Hopefully Jevon's Paradox will come into play, but that's really not a technical problem but a business one.
Can you run out of new and unique problems without running out of economic innovation? If there are no new business processes, no new features or products that require new complexity, how is there room for new entrants? You either get a race to the bottom, commodity prices for commodity goods; or market and regulatory capture and artificially high prices and barriers to entry.
Where is the room for "vibe coder" - or really any of the business people that would hypothetically be using agents to "just write their own code"?
Teams and tools will certainly look different. But people crave novelty which is a big part of why I've never been on an engineering team that was staffed enough to come even close to the output the business owners and product teams desired. So I don't think we'll actually hit the end of the road there.
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In a true-super-human-AGI world things look very different, but then there's one question that matters more than any others: where is the money coming from to build and maintain the machines? The AGI agent that can replace an engineer can actually replace an entire company - why go to a vibe-coding entrepreneur and let them take a cut when you can just explain what you need to an agent yourself? The agent will be smarter than that entrepreneur, definitionally.
> Can you run out of new and unique problems without running out of economic innovation?
Probably not, but the numbers may vary. Case in point, we have a booming chip industry now, but the demand for EE graduates is still far less than that for CS graduates, even under the current tough market condition.