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I think this from @sleepyfox is apt, and it’s hedge-your-bets true-either-way apt:
If by some miracle LLMs do eventually manage to generate usable software better than humans, there will be vastly increased demand for all the parts of programming that aren’t syntax and basic code patterns (ie all the hard parts).
If (as I expect) LLMs generate mountains of half-baked garbage code, the corps that survive will be paying humans to clean up the mess for a generation.
https://hachyderm.io/@sleepyfox/112700667658775141
As replies to the OP point out, the question isn’t really whether the software industry grows (it will, if civilization continues) or whether it changes (it will, guaranteed, as it always has).
The question is who gets harmed along the way. When companies punch themselves in the face, it’s not the people in power who bleed.
If my remark above about “all the hard parts” doesn’t immediately click for you — or if it does and you just want to cheer on somebody telling it like it is — I recommend this instant classic essay from @jenniferplusplus:
https://jenniferplusplus.com/losing-the-imitation-game/
See also this thread from my pinned posts:
@inthehands I keep thinking about post-apocalypse fiction, where the survivors have lost the knowledge to make or maintain the technology left behind. It's not happening in the order I thought it would.
Ubi sunt, I guess
It's the year 2040, ten years after the "grey code goo" scenario became reality.
A group of human code excavators slices&dices their way through artificially inflated codebases, throwing meaninglessly included libraries and spurious dependencies out by the millions, welding NOP slides from the husk of what was once, and could be again, proper functioning software.
I'm in the middle of Roger Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind," which is a BIT of a slog since the author needs several hundred pages of physics and mathematics to get to his point. But even for a book written nearly four decades ago, he's got some pretty major points.
@inthehands @sleepyfox There's another hope for the latter case: if we're on the cusp of an an anti-trust revolution (like the beginning of the progressive era in US history), then we won't be cleaning up half baked garbage for a generation. With any luck, breaking up monopolies will allow half baked garbage to be out-competed, and we'll just get to delete all of it with the help of bankruptcy judges.