I can’t offer input as a seasoned programmer because I only started studying with fCC in Feb. 2023 and I completed the 10 th course, InfoSec, like 2-3 months ago (not that it will take that long for other students: I took about a 4-month hiatus in ‘23, and about two months in 24’ due to traveling), but I can offer input from a field which went from “AI will only be a tool for us” to “AI will never replace us” to “AI won’t replace us anytime soon” to “AI completely wiped out the vast majority of our jobs” very quickly: Translation.
I used to work as a freelance translator with an online translation agency (important note: I didn’t have my own customers. I relied on the agency to get those and to make their jobs available to me and all the other translators). While there are lots of tradeoffs associated with that type of work, I could count on it to sustain myself (single man renting a 1be/1ba in an underdeveloped country in which the price of the US dollar kept climbing) for about 10 years. Never knew how much money I was going to make each month, but I could rest assured it would be enough. In addition to the main agency, I also made some extra cash with two other agencies.
While I was expecting AI to have some impact in the job market, the drop in job postings I saw in the last year, when AI really started going mainstream, has been shocking. It completely gutted my income. Some of the last few months, I made about 20 dollars per month, or less. I have to be very lucky to even make 100 bucks a month. While I still get several job notifications from my main agency, they’re less than they used to be, and the amount of available translators competing for them is larger. Also the other 2 side-agencies I used to work with, which used to send several notifications a day, might now go days without notifying about new jobs.
EDIT: The previous text, I wrote about 2-3 months ago but it was getting so long and I had yet so much to say that I left it as a draft and almost forgot about it. Also, my translation income is now absolute zero . I’ve completely given up on it at this point, after a looong decline.
Long story short: every time I see programmers on this forum, or YouTube, or wherever, saying things like “Programmers will always be necessary to supervise the work done by computers”, they sound EXACTLY like translators did just a couple of years ago. I’ve attended a few tech conferences in my city, which of course focused heavily on AI, and all the speakers gave the same, tired talking points and euphemisms (which is just a fancy way of saying “lies”); “AI won’t replace you; a person using AI will replace you” (which purposefully draws the focus away from the people who designed the technology that will soon strip millions of people of their livelihood), and the usual deceiving true statements of “AI will create NEW positions”, as if we weren’t smart enough to reply in your heads "Yeah, but if each of those positions replaces SEVERAL positions, then that’s a net negative ". Also, tasks and resources are finite, companies can’t grow infinitely; if programmers can get more job done more quickly, that doesn’t mean their employer will suddenly find more work for them; it means that they’re not going to have a need for as many employees anymore
Now, same as I’ve no doubt that some people are lying about AI not replacing programmers, I have no doubt that some people are simply wrong and/or in denial about AI not replacing programmers, because on top of it being a horrible idea that we’d all rather not think about, we know that anything that is created by a computer should always be reviewed by human. The BIG point that almost always goes over people’s heads (and I’ll 100% admit it went over my head too) is: what happens when the clients and employers either don’t know that, or don’t care? You’re out of a job. Plain and simple. It’s doesn’t matter if the computer needs human guidance, it doesn’t matter if the output is not good enough, and it doesn’t matter if you know these things. The only thing that matters is whether the clients and employers are willing to settle for lesser-quality work (which again, they might not even realize is lesser-quality) as long as it means lower costs and quicker turnaround times. And guess what: the masses always settle for lesser quality as long as it means cheaper prices and faster delivery. Anyone reading this knows it to be true because we all do it as well (to name one example, just think of the cheap plastic products we buy all the time, compared to more durable but expensive items of a few decades ago). And I know I’m not the only one who’s already noticed how human jobs have been taken by AI; advertisements starring AI-generated people (a model lost a gig), AI-generated generic “music” on YouTube, chatBots who put phone agents out of work, and don’t get me started on the horrible, unnatural or just flat-out wrong subtitles I’ve been seeing in “professional” media like streaming services or movie/tv/video game trailers, which obviously no one reviewed. Didn’t Coca Cola just release an ad with AI generated people? How many humans lost a job opportunity there? And going back to my point; did that ad look good? A big NO; everything looked fake and plastic, and yet what did Coca Cola do? They settled for that, even though they have an insane amount of money, because it was cheaper and quicker to produce. Hell, I saw an add for a major bank on YouTube that featured a sketch of a father and his kid, and the kid had six fingers. It didn’t matter, they settled. That’s really the only thing that matters when it comes down to workers being replaced by AI, and it will be the same for programmers.
Again, I hope to God I’m wrong on this, but I truly believe we’re on the brink of a major unemployment crisis, probably the worst in history, because it’s not just that people are losing their jobs but they can go out and look for a new position in the same line; entire professions are being wiped out, people are truly being made obsolete and stripped not just of their livelihood, but of their capacity to provide value and get paid for it (and no, telling a person to learn something new when maybe they spent years learning a profession —and maybe even went into massive debt if they live in the US— is not an acceptable answer).
Remember that moment in Jurassic Park when Ian Malcolm says “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could do it, that they didn’t stop to think if they should” ? We’re at that point now. The people who created these technologies have unleashed something that will truly ruin millions of people.
My advice for anyone here who’ll be willing to listen to me:
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Be very careful with your money. The next few years will be very shaky and you could find yourself stripped of your income very suddenly (like I was). Make sure you’re saving for a rainy day and living below your means; e.g.: just because you’re making good money right now, that doesn’t mean you need to be spending on an unnecessarily pricey apartment in downtown LA, specially if you have the option of working remote, or that you need FIVE streaming services. Better start thinking about cutting back on some expenses sooner than later.
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Develop strong interpersonal relationships at your place of work; remote jobs will be the first ones to go, as it’s always easier to fire someone whose superiors feel no attachment to. I’m sure more specialized, certified, or in-house translators still have a job (even though they’re still at risk), but those of us who were working freelance are done for.
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Become as skilled as you can with the new AI tools; this is obvious but, again, employers will prioritize people who can leverage them to increase productivity and, sadly, replace other coworkers (it’s going to be way more of a dog-eat-dog thing). Also, in regards to coding, I think junior devs (which is what I’ve been trying to get a job as) are going to have a really, really rough time. In my opinion, it’s like the door to a castle that is closing down and we’re all trying to get inside before we’re left out.
It’s going to get crazy out there. In my opinion, it’s better to be concerned and prepared and right, than to be optimistic and wrong (which after writing it, I realize I pretty much could have said “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst”).
Watch your spending, your savings, and best of luck.
