this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

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I found this thought funny. A few years ago everyone was all learn to code so you don't lose your job! Now there wont be any programming jobs in 10 years. But we will need a lot of manual labor still.

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[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 121 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Problem is, people want a silver bullet and there just isn’t one.

You need to create an economy that works for everyone where skilled workers from all professions can be successful. You can’t cram everybody into one job and expect everything to just work out.

Just about all jobs are important, and all workers deserve a living wage and fair compensation.

No amount of Band-Aid job stuffing is going to make up for a leadership that doesn’t believe that everyone ought to be able to live a good life.

[–] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 101 points 1 day ago (4 children)

As a software engineer who uses AI agents daily, let me tell you: now is as good a time as any to learn to code. LLMs won't replace any developers.

[–] fubbernuckin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Well the job market for developers is still pretty tight at the moment. I don't have the insight to say for sure why (though I have some guesses), but I know that for me and every junior developer I know it's rough out there.

[–] meekah@lemmy.world 51 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As a junior dev with prior working experience, currently not working as a programmer, yeah. I can only agree.

We might understand AI won't actually solve the same problems we are able to solve, but the people deciding budgets dont understand that.

They don't understand a lot. For whatever reason, higher management still thinks things are like a factory, and you just build your software like building a car.

Why? Because that's the only way they know in the world of MBAs. They can't speak any other language than "product."

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Having been around for a few decades now I can tell you that the job market comes and goes. Things have been tight before, and there has been more openings than people to work them many times in the past. I can't tell you when things will turn around, but odds are they will. (this is sadly not helpful if you are one of those currently needing a job)

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[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I don't have the insight to say for sure why (though I have some guesses),

In the USA, there's a tax break for research teams expiring this year. Supposedly it made software develoent team salaries fully tax deductable.

In the USA, I suspect this is the real motive for using the AI hype train to justify layoffs.

I'm willing to admit "Most CEOs are stupid" also has merit, of course.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

LLMs are going to replace some developers, the companies that do that will fold because their product doesn't work, the developers will get jobs elsewhere.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 9 points 22 hours ago

The market can stay irrational for longer than you can afford not to eat

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[–] Vinny_93@lemmy.world 58 points 1 day ago (5 children)

We are still a long ways away from AI being able to replace programmers. The amount of sheer bullshit code and wrong stuff it writes currently will cripple any information system currently keeping economies up and running.

[–] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (4 children)

That won't stop large corporations from dramatically reducing programming jobs my friend.

[–] dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Until they notice that cleaning up after failed AI-written code is more expensive than writing working code from the start. Which is already happening for some companies.

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[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I watched in real time tech bros defending AI about stealing everyone's art to them realizing that they're creating something that will replace them. It was sad funny.

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I think a lot of the crunch in the labor market for programmers is "monkey see monkey do" thinking at the big tech companies. It might even be somewhat calculated, though I hesitate to call something a conspiracy when it could simply be due to stupidity on the part of senior management.

Large tech companies tend to have a lot of flexibility and their total headcount because they have a wide variety of departments and tasks that they can set aside for an extended period before it causes any problems. Those problems will eventually catch up with them, though, as will a code base written by somebody who doesn't understand what they're trying to accomplish.

So I think the pendulum is going to swing back to a labor crunch at some point. My guess is at least another 6 months before we see any hint of that, though. I don't think it will be as bad as it was before the advent of LLMs, though. They really are a productivity enhancing tool, particularly for software developers who know what they're doing.

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[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 46 points 1 day ago (14 children)

Learn code anyway. LLMs can't code worth a shit, so there will be plenty of jobs available to clean up their mess.

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[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 34 points 20 hours ago (7 children)

The Learn To Code hype was being driven by employers to create a work surplus to drive wages down. Now those same employers think they can use AI instead.

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[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago (8 children)

The code will break and they will be back. People are buying into the bullshit until they realize its just marketing and has no practical application

[–] riskable@programming.dev 8 points 1 day ago

Interestingly, that's how it works for construction jobs too!

Things will break and they will be back.

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[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 30 points 1 day ago (5 children)

It's not so much we need manual labor but skilled technical labor. Like plumbing, electrical, working with pulse logic controllers, Mason, welder, Nursing, emergency room technicians. Etc

[–] Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

My dad is a master mason and can't find anyone at all who wants to do the job. It's hard, hard work. Unfortunately, it seems like he's going to have to retire with no apprentices to carry on all his incredible knowledge.

[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Can he afford to?

Current trades are underpaid for what is expected from them.

[–] teft@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Then he needs to charge more if he can't afford to pay his employees more.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Exactly. There is no such thing as a labor shortage, only activities that people don't think are worth the cost.

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[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 28 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

LLMs can recite code when asked properly, with a lot of errors. Trying to put code together with it without understanding how said code works is a greater insanity, than making random numbers with mathematics.

The real reason why there's a downtick in coding jobs is due to Xitter not imploding immediately after the mass firings. Now coders are working overtime with skeleton teams on the same problems, while being overburdened and making more mistakes.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 9 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I think AI is a component of the decline.

For decades, companies have operated under the misunderstanding that more software developers equals more success, despite countless works explaining that's not how it works. As a result many of these companies have employed an order of magnitude more than they probably should have and got worse results than they would have. However the fact they got subpar results with 10x a good number just convinced them that they didn't hire enough. Smaller team produce better results made zero sense.

So now the AI companies come along and give a plausible rationalization to decrease team size. Even if the LLM hypothetically does zero to provide direct value, the reduced teams start yielding better results, because of mitigating the problems of "make sure everyone is utilized, make sure these cheap unqualified offshored programmers are giving you value, communicate and plan, reach consensus along a set up people who might all have viable approaches, but devolved into arguments over which way to go".

AI gives then a rationalization to do what they should have done from the onset.

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[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 25 points 17 hours ago

Lol anyone who thinks you don't need any programmer in 10 years of time will burn and crash in the next few years when finally realizing that AI isnt as intelligent as we're being sold.

Good luck trying to troubleshoot the code AI wrote tho.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 24 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

Remember when Biden told coal miners to learn to code

"My liberal friends were saying, 'You can't expect them to be able to do that,'" Biden told his New Hampshire audience. "Gimme a break! Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program for God's sake."

These politicians and policy makers don’t know what they talk about when it comes to tech. Any one who tells you that programming jobs will be gone because of AI has never written a complex piece of software before. Also the trades pay well because there is a shortage of workers. If everyone starts going into the trades wages will crater. It’s just cycles. I remember when nobody wanted to go into the trades because it didn’t pay well. This created the shortage of workers. And since salaries are better now because of the shortage lots of people want to go into the trades This will create an oversupply of tradespeople and the cycle will repeat.

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[–] Wazowski@lemmy.world 22 points 21 hours ago (8 children)

I remain deeply skeptical that AI can solve the types of complex problems that require human thought. AIs will never be able to abstract away details correctly or design sensible workflows for boutique problems.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 22 points 20 hours ago

They can't, this is the same shit that happened when the dipshit ceos sent dev jobs over seas to code farms. Devs lost their jobs, and the code went to shit. Then when shit started breaking, they magically rehired everyone again to spend years cleaning up the shit code. LLMs are this all over again, just quicker this time.

[–] eRac@lemmings.world 11 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

The problems start if it can take on a lot of the junior work. If nobody can enter the industry, nobody can get the experience required to do the real engineering.

Open-source and personal work may be the only way to enter the programming field in the next decade.

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[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 19 points 11 hours ago

The reactionary “learn to code” nonsense started a lot further back than a few years! Also, who told you there won’t be any software development positions in 10 years?

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've been hearing that line for more than 20 years. Anytime there is a tech downturn you hear it loudly - this has happened several times since 2000. However the fact remains that most coders make far more money than most people in construction. The exceptions tend to be people who own their construction business - though if you do the paperwork construction is one of the easiest businesses to work for yourself in once you have skills.

[–] misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago

When I began my career, other senior engineers said they had heard the line since the 1970s/1980s.

[–] Waldelfe@feddit.org 18 points 1 day ago

Typical pork cycle. By the time everybody was pushed towards IT/Coding and all the hundred ways to get into IT popped up, there were already too many people wanting an IT job. You were basically called stupid if you didn't "just learn to code" to get a well paid, stable job. It's your own fault for chosing a manual labor job instead of applying yourself and learning some coding skills! So everybody was pushed towards IT and made to feel stupid if they didn't try to learn coding.

[–] burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 16 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

the only job that can't be replaced is... venture capital guy

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 16 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I can think of no better way to train an AI to hate humanity enough to invent Skynet and kill us all, than to introduce them to MS Teams meetings with managers who all want things that are completely incompatible with what they asked for the last time, and require you to throw away about 40% of what you already wrote.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 15 points 10 hours ago (4 children)

Now there wont be any programming jobs in 10 years.

Bullshit.

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[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 15 points 1 day ago

Well, anyone who knows anything about the current iteration of AI knows that it's not really happening.

Btw, people have been saying that since GPT-3 (which everyone nowadays admits was kinda shit if it wasn't for the novelty), so only 5 years left until my career is over.

[–] troed@fedia.io 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The use of AI by non-developers to produce code will greatly increase the hourly rate I can charge.

The number of security holes produced is absolutely fabolous.

[–] salacious_coaster@infosec.pub 8 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Back when I practiced law, I thought the same thing about services like LegalZoom. Thing is, laypeople are terrible at evaluating risk in a professional way. All they see are prices and marketing. Nobody cares about cybersecurity until they get ransomwared AND have a financial motive for preventing it. And most attacked companies now just shrug and hand out a year of credit monitoring from a company no one's heard of.

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[–] Demonmariner@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

I'm fairly sure the "learn to code" thing was just a media campaign by corporations to assure an abundance of programmers, leading to decreased labor rates. Years earlier it was a push for electronic engineers and technicians.

[–] radix@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (4 children)

As soon as I graduated, 'too many people are fighting for IT jobs, depressing salaries, meanwhile we're paying plumbers $100/hour.'

That was 2001. Almost 25 years later, I recently paid a plumber $300/hour.

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[–] tetranomos@awful.systems 9 points 12 hours ago

If machine intelligence is indeed a different form of intelligence, then it can be observed and judged on the basis of its own merits, as opposed to a messianic waiting for a moment where it might equal or eclipse (weakly defined) human intelligence. This would even render obsolete the question as to whether or not machines can think—which in itself willfully glosses over the corresponding opposite question, “Can humans think?” posed by the former Fluxus artist (and Emmett Williams collaborator) Tomas Schmit in the year 2000 (Schmit et al. 2007, 18–19). — Crapularity Hermeneutics: Interpretation as the Blind Spot of Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Other Algorithmic Producers of the Postapocalyptic Present. Florian Cramer.

[–] billiam0202@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nah, it's just changed from

Learn to code

to

Learn to AI prompt engineer, bro!

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