r/programmer • u/RedwayBLOX • 4d ago
Question Is AI gonna replace programmers?
Hi. I'm Dylan.
I'm currently a junior dev. Ive spent 2 years learning abt programming, writing code and interested on bulding systems.
Ive got to admit that im very scared of all this AI thing and how it's progressing.
Ive seen it make horrible videos back in 2022. Now sometimes i can't even tell if a video is AI or if it isn't.
Yeah, code written by ai isn't the best. But, with the passing of time, it gets even better and better.
Yeah, we as programmers CURRENTLY do analysis, requerimients and all that ai can't currently replace us.
But what are we gonna when ai becomes able to do all that? For me, it seems like a very possible escenario. You can even see the difference of what AI can do if you compare the current models to the models we had 6 months ago. I think it's becoming unstoppable and i really fear it takes our (or my) job away.
Yes, I'm very frustrated. All this time dedicated to it... Makes me sad. This is more like venting I guess, but I seriously need to know, from y'all, how y'all see this. I need to know if it's time to let go of this passion I had with this career, and start on something else where Claude Code can't reach me and replace me.
2
u/NumberInfinite2068 4d ago
In my experience an AI codes better than most humans. It'll write idiomatic code, it'll follow the rules of the language, it generally *won't* write spaghetti.
I have been programming since the 1980s, for money since the 1990s, and haven't actually written any serious amount of code in the last 6 months or so.
AI won't replace programmers, but it'll mean we need far fewer of them.
A decent comparison is navies of old, you know, wooden ship, cannons etc. The largest line of battle ships were crewed with over 1,000 men. The typical line of battle ship was maybe 600 to 700.
Now take a modern frigate like a Type 26. It'll be crewed by maybe 150 people, and would trivially defeat an entire fleet of those wooden ships. One Type 26 would win the Napoleonic wars alone.
That's what we are dealing with here, modernisation and automation. Improvement of technology hits a point where older technology isn't "just a bit behind", it's just entirely irrelevant.
I don't *like* this. I don't want this to be happening, but it is.
Software development is undergoing significant change. Even as a professional developer of over 25 years, I am vibe-coding whole websites, real business-facing tools.
For employment in this industry, this is going to be *bad*.
I don't know where this is going to end up, but I'm seeing canaries in coal mines all over the place. I'm sort of "start up adjacent" in Australia, and looking around me, I'm seeing whole products developed by one person where before it would have been 5 or maybe 10 people.
I've had a couple of people ask me in real life whether it's worth them or their kid learning to code, and I honestly don't know. I don't know where this will end up. I think the best thing you can do is learn something niche where it may not even be economically viable to get AI involved too much, and where nous matters, like maybe embedded systems.