alt Hacker NewsThe best quote I've seen about AI and work: "If your job can be done from a laptop, you should be seriously considering what you'll be doing in 5 years".
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I am wondering whether us folks in the IT space are missing things about how the real world out there functions with those predictions.
As long as we do not hand over our collective decision making power to the machine god, which I don't think is a good idea and am not sure is even possible, the world out there is at this moment still shaped by humans, with other humans, for humans.
I have this feeling that there is more about society and economics than efficiency. I have right now people I know that work in jobs that could have been automated for many years to a very high degree. That is even without AI.
It will probably take decades before the world adapts to AI. Even some of the most modern societies still haven’t fully digitilized yet. There will be plenty of time to ride the wave of this adaptation, and still get payed for software work. There’s not enough mechanisms in place required for a fully automated adaptation. Human expertise will remain the missing piece for doing this shift efficiently.
I'm less convinced. I think as engineers/software-folks we tend to look at "something being built" as the end-result (since that's what we work towards).
Big companies though, are more concerned with value and risk. Say some data model provides $5 million in value, hiring a data person to check "everything is kosha", even if in theory someone could vibe code it by prompting an LLM, is a pretty good investment if it derisks the process.
Isn't that the same message we've been hearing ad-nauseam by now?
What makes that quote so special that it is worth pointing out as "the best" in 11/2026?
If I am still on this realm, it will be getting closer to 60, thus getting some early retirement most likely.
Depending on the field, five years is generous. 6-12 months (if not already gone) for many things.
I made my 20 year career as a person who could do stuff with computers, software engineer etc. Every time I hear someone say, "my non tech friend who vibe coded an app got a bug he couldn't fix" etc, my response is they are using the wrong model and give it a few months. And I say this with great pain, I am in no way an AI booster, just a realist.