Just as often with AI's detractors who claim that it "merely" predicts the next word, I have to wonder if those making these grandiose claims about the near future of AI have actually used GPT-4 and its predecessors in their work. There has to be some sort of logical fallacy regarding "well [insert literally any limitation here] won't exist in GPT(n+1) at this rate."
> Jobs are going to be lost, it's a fact.
What percentage of a programmers' time have compilers automated? It's gotta be multiple orders of magnitude of efficiency gained. I could see a GPT-4 based GitHub Copilot being something like a 3-5x improvement on development in the best use cases (e.g. CRUD development built on public frameworks.) That's a colossal impact, but it's hard to even put on the scale to other ways programmers have automated their work in the past. Every time programming has automated giant swaths of programmer time, the end result has been that programmers can generate far more economic value even faster. This end result has consistently (and paradoxically) led to far more work and jobs for developers than before.
> Even if it's just that junior who was learning code reviews and supporting basic development, that job will be around for maybe a year or two at the rate we are moving.
At least in my admittedly niche area of work, juniors just aren't all that helpful. The time they take away from seniors or other members of the team makes them at net negative for at least a few months. It's often a year or more before we reach break even. Junior positions are investments in potential future independent contributors at a time where filling IC roles is still extremely difficult.