Dario Amodei says software engineering is fully automated by 2027. You might have the 0.01% engineer left over, but that's it, the job is finished.
I think people need to start considering strongly what kind of career they can re-skill to.
I think people need to start considering strongly what kind of career they can re-skill to.
What exactly is the .01% of engineering work that this super intelligent AI couldn't handle?
I'm not worried about this future as a SWE, because if it does happen, the entire world will change.
If AI is doing all software engineering work, that means it will be able to solve hard problems in robotics, for example in manufacturing and self driving cars.
Wouldn't it be able to create a social network more addictive than TikTok, for anyone who might watch? This AI wouldn't even need human cooperation, why couldn't it just generate videos that were addictive?
I assume an AI that can do ultra complex AI work would also be able to do almost all creative work better than a human too.
And of course it could do the work of paper shuffling white collar workers. It would be a better lawyer than the best lawyer, a better accountant than the best accountant.
So, who exactly is going to have a job in that future world?
in general, the people saying this sort of thing are not / have never been engineers and thus have no clue what the job _actually_ involves. seems to be the case here with this person.
virtually everyone has a vested interest in their jobs being relevant
> just with less information
i'm not sure how someone who has no relevant background / experience could possibly have more information on what it entails than folks _actively holding the job_ (and they're not the ones making outlandish claims)
That being said, I suspect Dario has very skilled engineers advising him.
I don't personally think that's how it will go. AI will always need its hand held, if not due to a lack of capability then due to a lack of trust. But since you do, why the gloom?
Because at that point there's 2 scenarios:
- LLMs don't need humans anymore and we're either all dead or in a matrix-like farm
- Or companies realize they can't make LLMs buy the stuff their company is selling (with what money??) so they still need people to have disposable income and they enact some kind of Universal Basic Income. You can spend your days painting or volunteering at an animal shelter
Some people are rooting for the first option though, so while it's good that you've found faith, another thing that young people are historically good at is activism.
202X: SWE is solved
202X + Y; Y<3: All other fields solved.
In this case, I can't retrain before the second threshold but also can't idle. I just have to suffer. I'm prepared to, but it's hard to escape fleshy despair.
Seems more anti-fragile.
EVERYTHING is upturned. "All other things solved" includes robotics. It's a 10x everywhere.
Say there used to be 100 jobs in some company, all executing on the vision of a small handful of people. And then this shift happens. Now there are only 10 jobs at that company, still executing on the vision of the same handful of people.
90 people are now unemployed, each with a 10x boost to whatever vision they've been neglecting since they've been too busy working at that company. Some fraction of those are going to start companies doing totally new things--things you couldn't get away with doing until you got that 10x boost--things for which there is no training data (yet).
And sure, maybe AI gets better and eats those jobs too, and we have to start chasing even more audacious dreams... but isn't that what technology is for? To handle the boring stuff so we can rethink what we're spending our time on?
Maybe there will have to be a bit of political upheaval, maybe we'll have to do something besides money, idk, but my point is that 10x everywhere opens far more doors than it shuts. I don't think this is that, but if this is that, then it's a very good thing.
Most people are just drones, and that's fine, that's just not them.
If AI can do the drone work, we may find more vision among us than we've come to expect.
Work on your soft skills. Join a theater club, debate club, volunteer to speak at events, ...
Not that it's easy, and certainly more difficult for some people than for others, but the truth is that soft skills already dominate engineering, and in a world where LLMs replace coders they would become more important. Companies have people at the top, and those people don't like talking to computers. That is not going to change until those people get replaced.
And say like LLMs get good enough to displace 30% of the people that do those. That's enormous economic devastation for workers. Enough that it might dent the supply side as well by inducing a demand collapse.
If it's 90% of all jobs (that can't be done by a robot or computer) gone, then how are all those folks, myself included, going to find money to feed ourselves? Are we going to start sewing up t-shirts in a sweatshop? I think there are a lot of unknowns, and I think the answers to a lot of them are potentially very ugly
And not, mind, because AI can necessarily do as good a job. I think if the perception is that it can do a good enough job among the c-suite types, that may be enough
I mean, 99.99% of engineering disappearing by 2027 is the most unhinged take I've seen for LLMs, so it's actually a good thing for Dario that he hasn't said that.
Dario's vision of AI is "smarter than novel prize winners" in 2027.
> The comment about software engineering being “fully automated by 2027” seems to be an oversimplification or misinterpretation of what Dario Amodei actually discusses in the essay. While Amodei envisions a future where powerful AI could drastically accelerate innovation and perform tasks autonomously—potentially outperforming humans in many fields—there are nuances to this idea that the comment does not fully capture.
> The comment’s suggestion that software engineering will be fully automated by 2027 and leave only the “0.01% engineers” is an extreme extrapolation. While AI will undoubtedly reshape the field, it is more likely to complement human engineers than entirely replace them in such a short timeframe. Instead of viewing this as an existential threat, the focus should be on adapting to the changing landscape and learning how to leverage AI as a powerful tool for innovation.
Can they be permanently embarrassed?
Combined with his generally measured approach, I would trust this over the observations of a layman with incentive to believe his career isn't 100% shot, because that sucks, of course you'd think that.
Unfortunately, it appears to be.
People sang similar praises of Sam Bankman-Fried, and that story ended with billions going up in flames. People can put on very convincing masks, and they can even fool themselves.
"Fix all mental illness". Ok.. yes, this might happen but what exactly does it mean?
"Increased social justice". Look around you my guy! We are not a peaceful species nor have we ever been! More likely someone uses this to "fix the mental illness of not understanding I rule" than any kind of "social justice" is achieved.
It will be greater than anyone but it won't be able solve THAT problem or any problem created after 2026, I can tell.
CEOs with little faith in their own products. Most likely it's widespread imperfect AI for a long while == unprofitable death for his company.