AI and the future

of software development

2025-03-27 WeAreDevelopers WebDev & AI Day

Shameless plug

I work for LlamaIndex.

You should try out our framework!

What are we

talking about?

  • How AI will change software
  • Lessons from the Industrial Revolution
  • The Software Revolution
  • The economics of software development
  • What this means for you
  • What this means for everybody else

Spoiler alert:

mixed news ahead!

What is AI?

"AI is whatever hasn't been done yet." - Larry Tesler

What is an LLM?

"LLMs are fundamentally prediction engines, not reasoning engines." - Yann LeCun

What can LLMs do?

  • Pattern completion
  • Summarization
  • Extraction
  • Tool use

What can LLMs do?

  • Pattern completion
  • Summarization
  • Extraction
  • Tool use

What can LLMs do?

  • Pattern completion
  • Summarization
  • Extraction
  • Tool use

What can LLMs do?

  • Pattern completion
  • Summarization
  • Extraction
  • Tool use

Can LLMs reason?

"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - Edsger W. Dijkstra

LLMs are great at transforming text into less text

LLMs are bad at creating more text than you gave them

LLMs don't do things unless you know to ask for them

How do LLMs change software?

"CRUD may seem simple, but it's the foundation upon which entire digital empires are built." - Tim Berners-Lee

Software that understands its data changes everything

LLMs are

an iPhone moment

That might be bigger or smaller than you were expecting

But what about software development?

The Industrial Revolution

Everybody got richer ...eventually

Was the Industrial revolution... good?

"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." - Theodore Kaczynski

Is this guy some kind of communist?

The history of software development

Assembly abstracted away hardware

High level languages abstracted away Assembly

The web is the biggest application platform

And it's not even close

Scripting languages created a boom in frameworks

Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript. - Atwood's Law

What is a "full stack" developer?

Abstractions lead to grumpy experienced developers

Inefficiency...

of what?

The economics of software development are against efficient software

But the fundamentals!

There is no such thing as the fundamentals

And that's okay.

Is abstraction... good?

"The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise." - Edsger W. Dijkstra

Developers will move down the stack when they need to

And you don't get to tell them when that is.

Why are developers so expensive?

  • Median US salary = $48k
  • Median US programmer salary = $132k

1

2

1 https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/14/median-annual-income-in-every-us-state.html

2 https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm

"Software is eating the world"

– some jerk

The quality of software is constrained by cost

Enter the LLM

Now we can fire all the programmers!

Whoa there, buddy.

Programming isn't about coding

"Anyone who thinks AI is going to replace engineers has either spent no time with AI or no time with engineers." – me

LLMs are (just)

a new level of abstraction

Vibe coding doesn't work if you don't know what the vibes are supposed to be.

LLM will always

need the problem explained

And that's more complicated than it sounds.

Programmers are not farmers

Programmers are makers of machines

There are about to be a lot more programmers

"Developers, developers, developers" - Steve Ballmer

Do we really need that many new programmers?

AI's effect on programmer salaries

Is AI... good?

Is the software revolution... good?

"The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past."

– Tim Berners-Lee

AI is good at things that are currently human jobs

A lot of jobs are about to go away

Capital vs. Labor again

Revolutions bring creative destruction

"Artificial intelligence is the new electricity." - Andrew Ng

What can I do?

  1. Learn the new ways
  2. Help the newcomers

Extend your empathy to maximum

Thank you

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." – Alan Kay

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