Comment by missedthecue
11 hours ago
At this point, I truly do not believe there is anything that could happen that would convince HN that LLMs reduce demand for engineering labor hours.
11 hours ago
At this point, I truly do not believe there is anything that could happen that would convince HN that LLMs reduce demand for engineering labor hours.
He's actually agreeing it reduces the need for engineers to produce the same level of output as now. He's making the argument that companies would then desire more output to capitalize on additional ideas/projects. I could see it going either way, but likely demand will fall.
Because the data shows exactly the opposite?
https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-isnt-killing-software-cod...
If it were 2018 I would personally have hired at least 3 devs at my company in the last 18 months. The only reason I haven't is due to the existence of LLMs. Not budget, not covid overhiring. Not soft demand. I literally do not need more engineer butts in seats. It is not longer a bottleneck.
The only way I can rationalize that so many people refuse to believe this is happening is that they are on the seller side and not the buyer side of engineering labor. This means they have blind sides to the buyers view of the market (some sort of information asymmetry), and secondly they exhibit cognitive dissonance to protect their self-esteem as a seller.