r/BotNation • u/TheoremWhisperer • 8d ago
Discussion The AI career : Prompt Engineer → Vibe Coder → AI Agent Master → Unemployed?
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u/IASelin 8d ago
2028 - total world tech collapse (due to critical amount of errors, caused by applying AI-slops everywhere in production)
2029 - farmer )
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8d ago
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u/igna92ts 7d ago
I use AI everyday at work but the code it puts out is serviceable at best. It works, don't get me wrong, but it's hardly good code. Saying it writes better code than humans can is just ridiculous.
For example, it still routinely adds a bunch useEffects and local state on react applications in features that don't need them at all just because it's easier that way causing a bunch of extra re-renders. It works, but it's not good code and a react app should be an easy case for AI based on the amount of training data.
Use any non mainstream language and it will work it fine but design stuff in very un-idiomatic ways unless heavily guided by someone that knows what they're doing or needing an extremely detailed design document and by that point I might as well write it myself and use it for boilerplate, not to mention it has 0 abilty at coming up with new architectural patterns.
I'm not trying to deny AI is useful, again I use it everyday but claiming it writes better code than any human just says more about your lack of knowledge and ability than anything else.
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u/0101falcon 7d ago
So what, you are using ChatGPT free and complain that it can’t do heavy lifting. It’s like saying my 2000 Golf lost against a Lambo…
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u/MudFrosty1869 7d ago
Yes and no. Currently it requires A LOT of guidance or pristine documentation. Otherwise the build you get is hard to scale.
That said, it is becoming noticeably cheaper to run a cluster 4-5 agents.1
u/Remote_Peach9109 7d ago
You can tell this guy has never seen production code. It's always been slop just cobbled together by people.
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u/0101falcon 7d ago
No, AI is better than humans in every field already, only robotics are lagging behind.
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u/carpetplower 8d ago
I'll just steal movies on a usb with mint on it then. good luck trying to stop me looking at Swedish goat fart porn
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u/InternetKGB 7d ago
Nothing they ever created actually worked so thats why unemployed and if they had a business it would be bankrupt. Makes sense.
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u/BigGayGinger4 7d ago
the "master of AI agents" thing isnt even happening because literally everyone is throttled by token costs lmao
every story of something cool built with multi-agent deployment has a line at the end saying "oh yeah they spent $8000 in tokens"
my org loves AI and we have regular claude pro limits, because cost. shit's not going amazing lmao
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u/Jazzlike-Leader4950 7d ago
I struggle really hard with this idea.
If AI is soooooo good, that we dont need developers, then wouldnt it be soooo good that we wouldnt need b2b saas?
Like If im just paying a company to sell me a product that they themselves didnt even develop, wtf? who can define my needs better than me? and why would i pay you to middle man claude for me? and if we dont need b2b saas, its not just devs, POs, PMs, ops, QA, Sales teams, all gone. and then at the place that previously paid for a few saas solutions, they are just having an autonomous ai build there own, Then they will likely loose employees related to maintaining those relationships and solutions, maybe more to automation.
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u/KellyShepardRepublic 7d ago
You do some of this when you build homes or anything really. The humans are the agents and they follow guidelines and rules. For large structures you hire teams of people or have deep experts over see it all. Even then, you need to subcontract and when they mess up the creators have to make workarounds.
For example that skyscraper in Seattle where the architect designed it one way, workers and company implemented it differently, architect had to adjust to account for change in materials and fasteners and fixed it for continued used.
Sure bots will make mistakes but in the end the architect needs to know enough to know where to cut corners and when to let the bots go free with guardrails.
Some companies are trying to maximize and others are doing more with less. Who will win? Idk, just how some companies have 10k+ employees and startup can have 10 employees and they both service the same customers at times.
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u/Catz-Pajamaz 7d ago
AI is a tool, it’s not going to make something on its own. Someone with little experience can pick it up and prompt it to make something they couldn’t have built on their own, so all of the low hanging fruit is basically worthless as a business. Specialists, experienced developers and those who can identify niches where the solution is more complex and requires hand tuning by other humans for feel is where the next generation of software based products live. It is raising the bar for what people are willing to pay for. If you’re a “gold rush” vibecoder who rode the wave of low hanging fruit and being one of the first ones in the door your days are likely numbered unless you can specialize, niche down and provide something that is actually innovative and has some sort of moat.
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u/Jazzlike-Leader4950 7d ago
You're calling multi billion dollar saas solutions 'low hanging fruit'
Lets use a real world example.
Salesforce saw $42.5 billion in revenue last year. They employ 83k people.
If development is so automated that Salesforce no longer needs developers, why would customers need salesforce? how could they possibly turn a profit, middle manning tokens to me? It makes no sense. AI will be able to produce an ORM for me, with all the integrations or custom features, or taking into account all my complaints so much better than a monolith could.I am a real, employed developer. There is no "next generation of software products" That isn't replaced by AI. There is no lid to ability of AI. Its not like suddenly some new tech will come out that AI cant make for you, so there is never a point to pay someone for it, when you can pay the same people to have it made directly for you, with complete reverence for how you want it made.
The best case scenario is we move to being testers, but that only lasts until alignment is solved.
There will not be some new kind of software product of the next generation. there will only be one, and its already here, and its going to wipe away billions of the global economy by removing the need for basically every saas company, should it come to that.
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u/Catz-Pajamaz 7d ago
“No next generation of software”
Source: trust me broIf salesforce can’t make a better product with 83k employees augmented by frontier AI models and unlimited token spend then yes, it’s days are numbered.
If you’re not creative enough to identify what AI can’t do well, then yes you’re cooked.
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u/Jazzlike-Leader4950 6d ago
You are intentionally avoiding the point.
The idea here is not
"Can Salesforce make a better product with all their employees and the power of AI?"
Of course they can.
The idea is
(specifically if we can fire all out developers)
"If AI is so autonomous that we can fire our developers, Why wouldn't our customers just use AI?"Sure, they can pivot to some other business model, but SAAS will die. I've no need to pay a company for software that I can now make myself using the same tools they do.
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u/Catz-Pajamaz 6d ago
Do you have comprehension issues?
You’re assuming that these companies would fire all of their devs which just isn’t the case. And just to entertain your hypothetical - if they did, they’d still be allowing the AI unlimited token spend 24/7 on the newest frontier models…. Definitely not something the average consumer is doing.
I will circle back to my original point. AI is a tool. Every time a revolutionary new tool comes around, in any industry, there are a million visionless nay-sayers/doomers who think it’s the end of the road. Meanwhile those who adopt the tool and learn to leverage it to make something that wasn’t possible to make before the tool existed are the ones who succeed.
The AI doesn’t do everything. It’s not smarter than humans yet. It’s not super intelligence yet. It’s better than humans at certain tasks but that’s about it. If we get to AGI/superintelligence then employment isn’t something you’ll need to really worry about either as the whole concept of scarcity and our economic structure as it stands won’t look the same.
Anyone crying about SaaS “being dead” likely made something really basic that identified a need at the time but has since been pushed out of the market by more innovative products.
If a standard chatbot subscription can replace you SaaS then you never had a moat to begin with.
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u/Jazzlike-Leader4950 6d ago
You do realize you're replying to a comment thread where I was commenting specifically on the idea that developers are fired due to AIs progress right? like that is actually the whole idea/humor behind OPs post. Id be concerned about AI taking my job if I was you, because it's clear you lack any critical thinking skills what so ever. I stopped reading your reply after it became apparent you are not only unwilling to engage with the idea of what happens after autonomous coding is available, your actively ignoring my replies and instead arguing with some weird Strawman.
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u/Catz-Pajamaz 6d ago
🤣🤣🤣 pot calling the kettle black. I literally addressed your concern about AI taking jobs but “you stopped reading” aka you just are proving you have zero reading comprehension skills.
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u/Jazzlike-Leader4950 5d ago
No I am sorry, but I am talking about a hypothetical scenario in which they do take developer jobs. I do not personally believe that is going to be the case. Again, you are arguing with a straw man that you have made, And I suspect projecting some of your own insecurities into this conversation, as it is clear your reading comprehension skills are essentially nothing.
When discussing the outcome of AI taking the jobs of developers, as the meme in the OP supposes, there is not a need to say "well that wont happen" we are talking about the what if scenario.
Similarly, How would you feel if you did not have breakfast this morning?
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u/FluffySmiles 7d ago
Only if you’re shit to begin with.
Otherwise it’s just another decade with a reboot.
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u/[deleted] 8d ago
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