alt Hacker News> We've been through cycles like this before. Back in the day, Dreamweaver was going to put every web developer out of a job [...]
I get what you're saying. This is why I was also skeptical, initially. But consider this: this time, it's qualitatively different, and more importantly, companies seem to believe so, which has real impact on our jobs.
Dreamweaver never threatened my job. Not once. Neither did Squarespace. I'm sure they did threatened some jobs, but ultimately they simply didn't replace the mind and hands guiding them, and in fact, they never aimed at this. "No code" tools were similarly misguided for a lot of real use case. However, this time, AI seems to be making real progress towards this, and is becoming a real threat to jobs.
The argument of "but when calculators/writing/$SOME_OTHER_TECH was introduced..." don't fly with me. $OLD_TECH is not necessarily analogous to new tech, or AI in particular.
What if this time it's different?
The marketing departments at tech companies have predicted 10 out of the last 2 technology revolutions. (Crypto is the future of money, MOOCs will kill universities, Zoom will kill the office, self driving cars will end personal automobile ownership)
Also, it’s a little too convenient that businesses are getting to spin their layoffs as a result of AI, rather than a weakening overall market (tariffs, higher energy costs) and a misallocation of resources (over-investment in VR, crypto).