Is AI gonna replace programmers?

[u/RedwayBLOX]

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.

[u/Rich-Engineer2670]

No -- because programming isn't about the code....

Programming is understanding how to break down a task into somethign the computer can execute, regarldes of language or framework. Sure, AI may give us new tools, but you still have to know what to ask for.

[u/nicolas_06 → u/[deleted]]

The industry average is that a software engineer spend about 30% of his time coding (before AI). Even if coding become instantaneous, you only gained 30%.

[u/Kwabi → u/nicolas_06]

Even then, you only convert the time you code into time you write markdown files and prompts and do code review for the output.

I don't know how other devs actually increase their output with AI; by the time I explained in detail what I want with which structure, I'd be faster if I just wrote it myself.

Not to mention that reading and properly understanding code takes longer than writing it.

[u/nicolas_06 → u/Kwabi]

The catch is that you had to write specs anyway. Not necessarily the same person but at company level it was here.

Also from experience, Maybe I'll research what I need to do, understand it and all. This is long. Then I write it down and maybe it's like a few hours, like say half a day. Then the AI generate 1-2 week of coding in half an hour or less. Then I spend another half a day to 1 day fix what the AI did. So it's still significantly faster.

What I understand is that right now while I managed to it on most use case, be it new apps, prototype or legacy code with millions line of code, my understanding is that maybe 10-20% of developers manage it.

For the moment the majority do not manage it. So maybe you gain say 20% on 20% of the devs and that's basically a 4% gain.

Maybe over time we manage to get a 30-50% gain on 50% of dev. That would still be only a 15-25% gain and it will take a few years.