Here's my thing: I'm a frontend developer. I like writing the HTML, Javascript and Java code that's part of my code, but I'm bad at CSS. I usually ask our web designer to do that stuff. With ChatGPT, I can ask the AI "here's my HTML and CSS, how do I get it to do X?" without interrupting coworkers.
Like, the stuff I ask usually isn't explained in documentation or Google, and gets your questions closed on Stack Overflow because of their overbearing content moderation policy. I can get my work out the door faster just by asking AI targeted questions, where before I'd need copious experimenting.
So instead of hiring a CSS developer, you've been incentivised to outsource their job to AI. No doubt there will be CSS developers who will be doing the same for html and javascript. And eventually management will realise they can get something kind of workable by just feeding in the UI/UX design.
We're a small company, like 5 employees including the owner, who owns other companies as well. We can't hire an extra CSS designer. I often ask our web designer, but he's also maintaining the websites of all the companies, which takes priority over our product.
I understand the pressure to get stuff done. And the problem isn't that it's happening in any one company or department, but that it's happening in *all* companies and departments. I don't think there's any way of stopping it. Even with AI in its current form, ropey AI code is ending up in prod.
The pressure to create code quickly at the expense of quality, forces devs to use AI more. If it works, then there's less pressure to hire new devs, which leads to fewer devs, which encourages the use of AI etc. Iterate that loop a few thousand times...
To be honest, I think the first to go will be front-end developers. The back-end is responsible for data security, so will be the last. I hope I'm being overly pessimistic, but I think both areas will be significantly reduced within the next 5 years.
I'm not too worried. This cycle has happened over and over again in history. Every new technology is feared at first. Trains. Planes. Telephones. Television. Writing. the Printing Press. Steam Engines. Cars. The Cotton Gin. If you can think of it, people have been worried about it.
But what you find is that yes, these new technologies have reduced the market for certain jobs, but they have also created entirely new industries that weren't possible or feasible beforehand. I suspect this will also happen with AI eventually, even if we may not be able to see that right now.
This is a little different. Our entire world now relies on software. While I'm I designing a process, I have the entire thing in my head and constantly run through all the logical possibilities. At the end of it, the types of bugs that are even possible in the finished code are limited.
In a world with trained, experienced architects/designers/developers, you don't need AI. So the only reason to use AI is if you want to reduce your dependency on those expensive resources. But without that experience, the types of bugs that AI may generate are limitless.
You not only have to test to check that the things you asked for work as expected, but that there is no hidden functionality that you didn't ask for!
That's just "hidden costs". Similar things happened early on with those other inventions as well, usually because of lack of regulations or central oversight. We're currently in the early days of AI, and I suspect that steps will be taken, both regulatory and functionally, to rein it all in.