alt Hacker NewsComputer code has from its inception until today wholly been about automation and thus about taking people's jobs away.
Each individual who has ever worked as a programmer has been in the business of taking away several other people's jobs.
That's why people have little empathy for programmers specifically when their jobs are taken away now by AI.
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That's a very, very narrow view of software. The firmware inside an internal combustion engine control unit did not take someone's job away. The software to assemble genomes from DNA fragments did take someone's job away. Nor did an MP3 codec, a game, or a search engine. All this stuff gave us more than we had before, it wasn't just automating existing capabilities.
Even when software has been used for automation it's been done to eliminate boring labour, not creative work. Eliminating jobs like switchboard operators or coal stokers is a good thing because those were unenjoyable and even dangerous jobs that nobody wants to do.
That and the fact that people void of any skills, coding or engineering ones, could still find a six figure job.
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> Computer code has from its inception until today wholly been about automation and thus about taking people's jobs away.
No it hasn't. It's been about making bomb-ass simulations and cool games and stuff.