"AI" is a much more palatable story for decision-makers than "we over-hired, and now the economy is tanking".
Stories like these are hard to square with studies that show zero or negative productivity improvements with AI.
I wonder what's going to happen when the AI companies stop essentially giving away their product, and start trying to make money. Does the whole ridiculous circus just stop dead?
But do any of the anecdotes in the article seem particularly outlandish? I've also heard the skepticism about actual gains with AI, but some narrow capabilities are undeniable. Made a React UI recently? It's not specialized, sure, but AI just whips React code up effortlessly. That is really hard to deny.
There is a lot of back and forth between "it will take all jobs," and "it shows zero or negative productivity gains." The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, with the tiebreaker being that these tools are getting better at breathtaking speeds. So even if capabilities aren't all-encompassing now, they are increasingly so.
As a Gen-Z who has first-hand experience with the situations described in the article, I am worried.
This kind of thing certainly upset me and caused a lot of anxiety the first couple of times I experienced it, but as it's happened over and over again through the course of my career, I've learned to shrug it off. Some new thing comes along, people make lots of money working on it, then it becomes well-enough understood to automate, and all those jobs disappear.
It does suck, when you enjoyed doing whatever that thing was, to watch the robots take it over.
The thing of it is that Jevons' paradox applies to software development as much as it does to anything else. When it becomes easier (and therefore cheaper) to make software, people demand more of it. This creates new demand for human engineers to work on whichever parts of the problem are not yet well understood enough to be automated.
A software engineering career never stays put for too long, especially the closer you are to the applications end of things. You might get to ride a groove for as long as a decade, if you're lucky, but change will always come. It doesn't mean your career is over.
Gen-z is locked out because the economy is tanked. That certainly sucks. It sucked in 2001, and it sucked again in 2009, and it'll probably keep sucking like this for another couple of years. But AI is just the excuse: companies always grow if they can, because not growing would yield the advantage to their competition. Blaming it on AI lets them explain it away without saying anything which might scare investors.
Fair. I suppose the question, then, is whether companies will give opportunities to those left out in the cold during this downswing, even though they'll essentially be starting their careers in their late 20's-early 30's. Or that segment of the generation just gets fucked permenantly.
Some years back, every other day there was a post on HN or what not where every 30 something failed millennial was talking about how they did some bootcamp so they could get their high comp package for a few years before being unceremoniously laid off, because as it turns out, you don’t really need that many CRUD monkeys, no matter what software is doing to the world.
I suspect in a decade or so we’ll see something similar
Nobody will be left to deal with the exceptions, which is just about everything, as the article points out. Unitree robots get rooted and start beating the shit out of human beings while Boston Dynamics robots are still being humped by dogs.
It can be true that overhiring would be corrected, and also that the holy grail invention with the direct purpose of replacing labor will create an even more transformative effect than that.
I agree that more people need to stay aware that we're in the pre-enshittification phase of low prices and less advertising. That will inevitably go away and get replaced with a much worse deal.
"AI" is a much more palatable story for decision-makers than "we over-hired, and now the economy is tanking".
Stories like these are hard to square with studies that show zero or negative productivity improvements with AI.
I wonder what's going to happen when the AI companies stop essentially giving away their product, and start trying to make money. Does the whole ridiculous circus just stop dead?
But do any of the anecdotes in the article seem particularly outlandish? I've also heard the skepticism about actual gains with AI, but some narrow capabilities are undeniable. Made a React UI recently? It's not specialized, sure, but AI just whips React code up effortlessly. That is really hard to deny.
There is a lot of back and forth between "it will take all jobs," and "it shows zero or negative productivity gains." The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, with the tiebreaker being that these tools are getting better at breathtaking speeds. So even if capabilities aren't all-encompassing now, they are increasingly so.
As a Gen-Z who has first-hand experience with the situations described in the article, I am worried.
> but AI just whips React code up effortlessly.
This kind of thing certainly upset me and caused a lot of anxiety the first couple of times I experienced it, but as it's happened over and over again through the course of my career, I've learned to shrug it off. Some new thing comes along, people make lots of money working on it, then it becomes well-enough understood to automate, and all those jobs disappear.
It does suck, when you enjoyed doing whatever that thing was, to watch the robots take it over.
The thing of it is that Jevons' paradox applies to software development as much as it does to anything else. When it becomes easier (and therefore cheaper) to make software, people demand more of it. This creates new demand for human engineers to work on whichever parts of the problem are not yet well understood enough to be automated.
A software engineering career never stays put for too long, especially the closer you are to the applications end of things. You might get to ride a groove for as long as a decade, if you're lucky, but change will always come. It doesn't mean your career is over.
Your take is from the angle of people who got into the job market to begin with.
The article is about people who get locked out before even getting a shot.
The pivots you describe are real and necessary, but they’re facilitated by career foundations gen-z is locked out of establishing in the first place.
Gen-z is locked out because the economy is tanked. That certainly sucks. It sucked in 2001, and it sucked again in 2009, and it'll probably keep sucking like this for another couple of years. But AI is just the excuse: companies always grow if they can, because not growing would yield the advantage to their competition. Blaming it on AI lets them explain it away without saying anything which might scare investors.
Fair. I suppose the question, then, is whether companies will give opportunities to those left out in the cold during this downswing, even though they'll essentially be starting their careers in their late 20's-early 30's. Or that segment of the generation just gets fucked permenantly.
Some years back, every other day there was a post on HN or what not where every 30 something failed millennial was talking about how they did some bootcamp so they could get their high comp package for a few years before being unceremoniously laid off, because as it turns out, you don’t really need that many CRUD monkeys, no matter what software is doing to the world.
I suspect in a decade or so we’ll see something similar
Nobody will be left to deal with the exceptions, which is just about everything, as the article points out. Unitree robots get rooted and start beating the shit out of human beings while Boston Dynamics robots are still being humped by dogs.
It can be true that overhiring would be corrected, and also that the holy grail invention with the direct purpose of replacing labor will create an even more transformative effect than that.
I agree that more people need to stay aware that we're in the pre-enshittification phase of low prices and less advertising. That will inevitably go away and get replaced with a much worse deal.
Do you think AI prices will rise to levels where human counterparts become competitive again? I’m doubtful.
I don't think the future hinges on price so much as whether the technology makes a real leap or not.
https://archive.ph/2025.11.13-065233/https://nymag.com/intel...