I think capitalism might take care of this. Let's say we have tools that make devs 10x more productive. A company could lay off 90% of their engineers and produce as much as they did before generative AI. What if their competitor decides they're going to retain all of their engineers and produce 10x more than they did before? That's going to force everyone to staff up to be able to keep up with the 10x company.
smt88|2 years ago
This has never saved anyone's job from automation. Ask the coal mining industry in the US. In fact, capitalism will do the opposite because investors own most companies and investors like to see reductions in head counts.
> What if their competitor decides they're going to retain all of their engineers and produce 10x more than they did before?
There are very few companies where "more code" = "more profit". Code is a cost center and support function of the business. Look at all the companies that recently fired 20%+ of their coders and are more profitable than they were before.
If your coders are 10x as productive and your business is growing in a healthy way, your bottleneck is going to be sales and marketing. It probably already was sales and marketing. You're not going to retain all the people you don't need.
ChatGTP|2 years ago
Seems a little stupid if your competitor has way more productivity?