Now AI is getting more and more popular. We can see LLM almost everywhere. From hardware manifactures to AI companies, everyone is hyping about AI. They claim that AI will replace software engineers, because AI can write 90% of the code, AI can generate code by a prompt.

Combining thoughts of real senior software engineers and my views, I would say it cannot be the truth.

Productivity Improvement

See when we have compilers, we nearly don't write assembly code anymore. It definitely improved programmers' productivity, but we need more programmers instead. So what's the difference for AI tooling?

If the 90% of code is and can be written by AI, but what 10% left is more difficult to write(because or not because of using AI), then I think using AI agent to generate 90% of the code is not that helpful. I'm not saying that AI is not helpful, it definitely is, like code completion, searching documentation, inspecting errors that is actually easy but can be ignored by programmers by mistake.

Fun Facts

Anthropic claimed that 90% code in their production environment is generated by AI. But why they still aggressively hire software engineers?

Ambiguity in Human Language

Talk is cheap, show me the code. -- Linus Torvalds

So natural language itsefl has ambiguity. Even we human cannot fully understand the language sometimes, then how can we expect AI to fully understand them? Think of project mangers, your clients. They are not technical, knowing nothing about coding, they even do not know what they want exactly at some points. The same thing will happen to those prompt engineers who expect to use natural language to build a whole project without learning any code skills or computer science knowledge.

Positive Aspects

Now with LLM, almost every industry, every non-technical person can use AI to do some code generation, which previously also not the responsiblity of software engineers as they tend to be more like toy projects but not production level. It is a good thing, because it may genearting more jobs, making those companies want to hire more software engineers to maintain those AI generated code.

The job market sucks now, not because of AI I think, but due to economic recession, hyping of AI, and CS graduates, fired software engineers are flooding the market.

Conclusion

So while AI tooling offers significant benefits, it is unlikely to replace software engineers. However, it will make job requirements of software engineers more demanding. It improves productivity, it may also create opportunities, engineers and students need to adapt to the changings.