If your company actually became vastly more productive, because of "AI" or whatever, you wouldn't lay off people: you would take on new efforts, make higher profits, have more things going on.

Layoffs are always - always - a sign of bad decisions, misallocation of priorities. Gross mismanagement. Always.

@RonJeffries
I think in general, even where generative AI kind of works, there's no productivity gain. It allows you to produce a great *volume* of documents, code, etc but not more *value* because that isn't in the text but in the ideas, understanding, morale etc of people in the business.

If you lay them off, you're admitting you didn't know what to do with that value or know that's where the value was.

@petealexharris @RonJeffries

A developer who just writes code, without understanding the system they’re working on deeply, is a liability. An engineer who understands the system can prevent risks.

The recent production outages at AWS, supposedly induced by AI-generated code, tell you that they’re using it the wrong way, in this context.

But there’s a reason I don’t hire people who just write code. I need systems thinkers who love to collaboratively innovate.

@systemalias @petealexharris @RonJeffries

The same principles of software quality assurance appy to AI generated code as human generated code if not moreso. Sure AI can output classes and facory patterns all day long. How is AI at version control or system integration? Enterprises can scarcely employ enough systems/data architects who can sufficiently communicate with their human counterparts let alone AI. How the hell can AI be trained to consider/evaluate/adjust to any company's complex (oh yes, they ARE complex) tech landscape?

AI is the emperor without any clothes. Delivering quality software and systems requires a farm to table/supply chain model. Quality outcomes come from quality ingredients. Companies didn't want to pay for the requisite resources before AI and it appears they're less inclined to do so with AI.

@greg_b @systemalias @RonJeffries
Yeah, you can't do quality assurance on what you don't understand, and systems thinking is built on understanding the components of the system, including algorithms and data flows. You come to that understanding best by building such components. Those who try to shortcut with code generation tools do not acquire, hone, or retain that understanding.
There may be a right way to use those tools, but it's definitely not to replace "people who just write code"