AI is NOT killing the software developer. AI is taking over tasks that software developers perform, but that does not translate into lost jobs. A new report shows why: AI is creating new and improved software products that raise demand.
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AI is boosting developer productivity (software output per developer). Case studies find improvements of 30%, 50% or more. And while preliminary, aggregate output per developer has increased since ChatGPT was introduced in 2022, growing at 6% per year.
2/9 aleximas.substack.com/p/what-is-the-…
If each developer can produce more software in a day, won’t firms hire fewer developers? And if highly skilled software developers are at risk of losing jobs, what about less skilled occupations? Such reasoning is behind the warnings of a mass unemployment “job-pocalypse.”
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But in fact, the number of software developers has grown robustly for decades and has continued to do so, adding 400,000 jobs since ChatGPT was introduced.
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Why? AI does more than simply replace developers on some tasks; it enables developers to produce new and different products, to do new and better things. And this creates jobs. This is what has been happening in software for decades.
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AI is hardly the first technology to improve software productivity. Productivity has risen with structured coding, automated testing, Agile Development and DevOps, cloud computing, Open-Source software and more. And SW output has risen even more rapidly than productivity.
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Even though fewer developers are needed to produce a given quantity of software, firms are producing so much more software that they hire more. But will this continue? Historical examples suggest it can continue for a long time.
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In textiles, steel, and autos, employment grew for decades as automation sharply raised productivity and also raised output. Until it didn’t. In textiles, after a century, demand satiated and productivity growth exceeded output growth, leading to fewer jobs.
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So this: software developer jobs will continue to grow as long as technology helps them create new and better products, raising output. AI leads to mass layoffs of SW developers only if AI is a very limited technology. Or if AI can do every single developer task (not soon).
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