My GenAI existential crisis
Originally posted on my LinkedIn page.
I'm having something of an existential-crisis this week re: Gen AI in software development. I’ve never seen something, that possibly has such huge consequence, be so absolutely divisive among people I respect and am friends with.
Sure, Emacs vs Vi; tabs vs spaces, those were also big fights, but those things never had the potential to upend the entire industry. And if my pro-Gen AI friends are right, it will. And if my anti-Gen AI friends are right, it’s a flash-in-the-pan that’s ethically disgusting, and doing real harm.
But here's a problem: if software development is to be 10 to 100 times faster (which is what some people I respect say [1]), then no matter of concern about the ethics is going to matter, since capitalism will (unfortunately) win. In that scenario devs who don't want to, or can't, use Gen AI will be the economic equivalent of hobbyists. [2]
So as someone who still wants a job in software for the next 10 - 20 years I find myself forced to work with GenAI, if nothing else as a hedge. But I find this motivation troubling.
FWIW, I do think GenAI is a useful tool, but I feel the revolutionary aspects of it - at least for long-term maintainable software - are unproven. I suspect in good hands it will be evolutionary and in bad hands leave a mess for others to cleanup later. I also think at some point that the GenAI vendors will start charging what this stuff actually costs and make the case for it far less certain.
But these are just educated guesses, and if I'm wrong where does that leave me down the road?
I know how this sounds - in the software industry we've heard so many cult-like pronouncements of "trends that you have to jump on or be left behind" - Web3 / blockchain, the metaverse, model driven development, etc. And of course none of those DID overhaul the industry. What's different to me this time is how many people I know saying "this IS the thing".
Optimistically, I think the skills I (and other developers) have will be easily transferable, if necessary, once all of this has settled down. And further, my strategy at the moment is to try to use GenAI every week, to try to learn how to use it better, but not to rely on it.
Even if this isn't the biggest change in software in decades, it's certainly the biggest argument. I wish we could get back to disagreeing about whitespace - there was a lot less riding on that.
[2] It would be nice to say that they were artisans, but the value of software is judged on what it does, not what it looks like or how it's made. If a GenAI-using company can end up writing some software that is functionally identical to the same software written by a non GenAI shop, and sell it, sustainably, for 5-10% the price, I can't see many people buying the non GenAI version.