> We could be celebrating that we can all work less for the same pay
Overall, Americans have been increasingly working more for less pay for decades, all while productivity (and profits) have risen. Even at the SWE engineer, we should never expect innovations to ease our labor burdens unless we fight for that to be the case. By default, we'll do one of two things:
1. Be expected to do a lot more work, since AI makes it easier
2. Get laid off, because 1 person is now doing what a team did with AI (even if they're doing it worse)
It's because many jobs aren't producing anything. That's almost all of professional services and it's exactly the kind of thing that gets whittled down as much as possible.
By this logic, any technology is a threat. Its only a matter of how the technology is used. We could be celebrating that we can all work less for the same pay, but that's not how we're choosing to have it play out.
Overall, Americans have been increasingly working more for less pay for decades, all while productivity (and profits) have risen. Even at the SWE engineer, we should never expect innovations to ease our labor burdens unless we fight for that to be the case. By default, we'll do one of two things:
1. Be expected to do a lot more work, since AI makes it easier
2. Get laid off, because 1 person is now doing what a team did with AI (even if they're doing it worse)