AFAICT, the future of software development looks like a lot of unprofessional software development.
Not unlike digital photography and Instagram. Has it killed film-photo divisions of photography companies? Yes. Has it put professional photographers out of business? Hardly, and in fact, the opposite. What the ubiquitous phone camera has done, is expose a lot many more people to the steep challenge of making truly good photographs. It has raised the average population-scale level of photo-erudition and taste to ever-more sophisticated levels. And, it has pushed the envelope on what photography can do.
So---assuming the AI overlords prevail (which I'm deeply skeptical of, but suppose a trillion dollars are right and I'm wrong)---what happens when LLMs allow anyone to vibe-code their own SaaS or Database or IDE or bespoke health-monitoring app or whatever...?
The important difference with digital photography is the phone photographer won't use pro lighting, different lenses, reflectors, bounced flash or other gear that contributes to the "pro photography" look.
With software, vibe-coders might use AI agents that have all the equivalent "pro photo gear" for professional output.
There's a moat around pro-photography protecting it from its snack-size phone-camera cousin. All those lights, lenses and tripods are the physical moat. If we ponder the question whether software development has an equivalent moat, the gp's gloom may be warranted.
- How much does a top-end "pro" AI account cost? Who can pay that on a sustained basis through a career? (Someone has to pay --- the cost gets loaded onto fully-loaded employee cost. And when it's the business doing it, you can bet that eventually CFOs are going to ask the hard questions.).
- How much does pro photography gear cost? Does every photographer own all the gear? (No. Renting is standard, and in fact, preferred. Nobody wants to buy thousand-dollar marco lens they will use only a few times to lean macro photography and do the occasional pro shoot. A specialist macro photgrapher will, because they can amortize the cost.)
AFAICT, the future of software development looks like a lot of unprofessional software development.
Not unlike digital photography and Instagram. Has it killed film-photo divisions of photography companies? Yes. Has it put professional photographers out of business? Hardly, and in fact, the opposite. What the ubiquitous phone camera has done, is expose a lot many more people to the steep challenge of making truly good photographs. It has raised the average population-scale level of photo-erudition and taste to ever-more sophisticated levels. And, it has pushed the envelope on what photography can do.
So---assuming the AI overlords prevail (which I'm deeply skeptical of, but suppose a trillion dollars are right and I'm wrong)---what happens when LLMs allow anyone to vibe-code their own SaaS or Database or IDE or bespoke health-monitoring app or whatever...?
(edit: fix formatting)
> "Not unlike digital photography..."
The important difference with digital photography is the phone photographer won't use pro lighting, different lenses, reflectors, bounced flash or other gear that contributes to the "pro photography" look.
With software, vibe-coders might use AI agents that have all the equivalent "pro photo gear" for professional output.
There's a moat around pro-photography protecting it from its snack-size phone-camera cousin. All those lights, lenses and tripods are the physical moat. If we ponder the question whether software development has an equivalent moat, the gp's gloom may be warranted.
Lifetime costs...
- How much does a top-end "pro" AI account cost? Who can pay that on a sustained basis through a career? (Someone has to pay --- the cost gets loaded onto fully-loaded employee cost. And when it's the business doing it, you can bet that eventually CFOs are going to ask the hard questions.).
- How much does pro photography gear cost? Does every photographer own all the gear? (No. Renting is standard, and in fact, preferred. Nobody wants to buy thousand-dollar marco lens they will use only a few times to lean macro photography and do the occasional pro shoot. A specialist macro photgrapher will, because they can amortize the cost.)
This is the most grounded and plausible-sounding ai take I've seen. Please keep saying stuff like this.
I cackled when I read this