I ran across this image that seems to support the idea capital/labor substitution in software development (see earlier post). Stack overflow is the preeminent site for software developers to get coding questions answered and/or find bits of code that will solve a current problem. But, being human intermediated, it could be slow and sometimes trolls will lead you astray. Its site volume seems to have started to decline with the advent of ChatGPT, the first, and most widely used LLM. Chat GPT can provide answers instantly, though some it may take some "prompt engineering" to get the specific answer you need.
Interestingly, much of the relevant training data come from stack overflow. Which means that asking ChatGPT is asking stack overflow but with computer intermediation. If ChatGPT allowing coders to get answers faster is leading to a decline in the demand for software developers, this suggest that AI is making software developers so much more productive that there is less demand for them. (edited)
"Which means that asking ChatGPT is asking stack overflow but with computer intermediation. If true this suggest that AI is making software developers so much more productive that there is less demand for them."
ReplyDeleteUh, this second sentence doesn't follow. It means that there is less demand for stack overflow because ChatGPT essentially put a nicer front end to it. But that doesn't necessarily imply that there is less demand for software developers.