I'm of the thought that #2 will happen. #1 will never happen - there are simply not enough developers to go around.
To use a relatively modern analogy, AI-enhanced development is to developers what Photoshop is to photographers. No one ever said Photoshop would put photographers out of business. Now Photoshop is a requirement for photographers. The pictures still need to get taken; likewise, for developers - the business requirements need to be captured.
AI [in its current iteration] cannot do that.
As developers, our jobs are safe. Jobs will not be lost at a massive scale; only those unwilling to learn a new tool will be replaced.
>To use a relatively modern analogy, AI-enhanced development is to developers what Photoshop is to photographers.
Photography as a job has been hit heavily by modern smart phone advances. Heavily. It's now very hard to get paid a living wage as a photographer. With mid journey it's now even harder. Photographers weren't completely replaced. I would say they were mostly replaced because now every Tom dick and Jane can take photos as good as any professional photographer.
>AI [in its current iteration] cannot do that.
All these changes happened within 6 months of progress. The technology has not stabilized. The current "iteration" will be obsolete very, very, very soon..
>As developers, our jobs are safe. Jobs will not be lost at a massive scale; only those unwilling to learn a new tool will be replaced.
Only for the current iteration of AI. Can you say the same for the next several iterations of chatGPT? No. Given the trendline, if it keeps continuing finding a job in software will be like finding a job in photography.
The way I see it: smart phones just made photography more accessible to everyone rather than for those who can afford $5k photography kit and a darkroom. Stock and news media photography went the way of the dodo, but there's still plenty of room for photography as a creative endeavor.
No matter how much you throw at it, you cannot replace the human behind it. It is too difficult.
Our jobs as developers are safe for current and future iterations of AI. The way we develop software may very well change, but we will still be developers. It's very well possible that software will go the way of photography. But that only means software is in the reach of everyone who wants to try their hand at it. It is a net good.
But that's not likely to happen anytime soon. So yes, our jobs are safe. Mine is quite safe. For quite a long, long time.
I know a few photographers and they have plenty of work and make nice money. The pictures that they take can't be compared with someone taking a picture with a smartphone.
To use a relatively modern analogy, AI-enhanced development is to developers what Photoshop is to photographers. No one ever said Photoshop would put photographers out of business. Now Photoshop is a requirement for photographers. The pictures still need to get taken; likewise, for developers - the business requirements need to be captured.
AI [in its current iteration] cannot do that.
As developers, our jobs are safe. Jobs will not be lost at a massive scale; only those unwilling to learn a new tool will be replaced.