The logic is simple. Every programmer is a potential competitor. Companies that laid off employees for AIs are committing a long term mistake.
I have been using Jules and Github Copilot for a personal side project. They can get a lot of stuff done fast but they can also lie.
Just today Jules was having issues that the github actions were failing, builda were failing, what did it do? It decided to delete the Github actions, no build errors without builds, am I right?
I review everything that AI agents do on my side project and I catch this kind of problem often, but I consider myself a seasoned programmer.
Now about companies that are run by non programmers... They can surely use AI, maybe faster and better AI with more limits that I can... But they should still have programmers. Obviously they should have programmers to review what AI does but you know why else?
EVERY PROGRAMMER THAT IS NOT WORKING FOR YOU MAY BE WORKING "AGAINST YOU"! Not in a bad way, not trying yo undermine you nor anything, but simply because programmers can use AI as much as you.
It is not a problem if as a stablished business you have 5, 10, 20 programmers trying to compete. But AI unleashes the power to everyone, you risk having everyone not under your payroll working for competitors or creating new business that may replace you!
This has happened when Twitter laid off employees and we have got bluesky. As AI advances this trend will be on steroids.
Imagine you are a social network? A SaaS? A video game company? You will already have customers and third parties trying to copy and one up you. Now imagine you layoff 1000 workers? Now you have 1000 capable and, even if slightly, knowledgeable people possibly working "AGAINST YOU"!
If capitalism has any rationality, and if interest rates go down, I am sure that companies will start realizing they can't buy out all competition and they can't afford "little competitors" when they are out by the hundreds, companies will start hiring simply to avoid competition, instead of buying out companies they will buy out people.
Do I believe this will happen? No, not next quarter at least because this would be a long term play and shareholders want quarterly gains, and if this isn't doable next quarter then in this economy it means it will never be done. So in a practical sense I think this won't happen.
What could happen though, and I may be delusionally optimistic, is that we will have a boom of creative people starting new business and one upping giants. This may as well be the saving grace of software engineering.
You know what? We have had so many revolutions, the combustion engine, electricity, computers... As through all that machines replaced people, but people still kept their jobs, you know why? Because if everyone can replace people with machines then no one has a competitive edge.
We still have jobs because whoever is hiring people has the machines + the people. The people create the value. If writing code is a commodity and everyone can write code then reviewing code is the next big thing. If AI can review code then deploying is the next big thing. If deploying ks automated then reliability, if reliability then brainstroming, if brainstorming then testing, if testing... It goes on and on and on!!!
You automate something, make it a commodity then everyone in every industry can do it the same as you, and whoever has the people has the capacity to one up you!
So companies are not only firing people, they are forming the next generation of competitors.
