In the spirit of alien-thinking:
Norbert Weiner (1950) sed: /When we use humans as components in a
machine—reducing them to repetitive, protocol-bound roles—we “chain a
man to a thwart,” turning him into an inferior machine. /
Commodification and automation are dual /operations/ that reorganize the
relationship between affordances and competencies across a
(heterarchical) system (of systems).
In this case there are two (or more) systems superposed: The /systemic
metabolism/ attempting to extract work and redistribute resources and
the /"distributed cognition/" system (cultural norms, government
regulations, religious unctions) attempting to organize elements to
effect that extraction/redistribution?
We are in (yet another) phase transition where formerly
innovative/creative processes have become commodified to the point that
they can be automated, which is part of a cascade of "yet more"
commodification and automation.
A third (and most salient to well adjusted human biengs and other
sentients perhaps?) is that of meaning whose objective is to justify and
stabilize participation through stablized idnetity, dignity narrative,
ethics, using ideas like purpose fairness, value and "shoulds".
To summarize: Dave's "should" seems to superpose the logic of the
/metabolism/ (should automate to optimize efficiency) and the /meaning/
realm with something like "everyone would be happier and more well
adjusted" if they were to give over to this commodification.
On 4/20/26 9:16 am, glen wrote:
There's a reading of Dave's OP not considered in this thread. He used
the word "should": "several hundred thousand developers/software
engineers should be replaced with AI and automated out of existence".
Of course, there is a usage of "should" that's more of a prediction
than a moral imperative. E.g. "We expect several hundred ...". But I
didn't read it that way. I read Kass' 5 questions ([mis]informed or
not) as an ethical stance. And Dave extended it to imply that those
developers *should* be obsoleted, according to Kass' ethic.
Granted, many others are being obsoleted. But should they? Should they
according to Kass' ethic? Something else like the one I forwarded?
Does everyone have their own persnickety set of rules?
A practical (though perhaps cynical or even nihilist) approach is to
[in|ab]ductively arrive at what *should* happen based on what *is*
happening, rather than stumbling into axioms of occult provenance. How
and when to map is-should is the fundamental question, much more
important than whichever individual rules might be adopted.
On 4/20/26 7:53 AM, cody dooderson wrote:
I agree with Marcus. It is not just software developers that are
getting replaced by AI. Book writers, musicians, lawyers and many
other professions are seeing competition from AI.
This article about an AI author just showed up on Hacker news,
https://theamericanscholar.org/who-is-blake-whiting/
<https://theamericanscholar.org/who-is-blake-whiting/> .
Apparently the books get very good reviews, but the author doesn't
actually exist.
I would speculate that almost any desk jockey profession is at risk.
_ Cody Smith _
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 4:27 PM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Dave writes:
< It seems to me, based on fifty years working in business IT
development,
that several hundred thousand developers/software engineers
should be
replaced with AI and automated out of existence. >
It's a growing list, and where it is weak, it mostly just a
question of
getting the token expenditure high enough while providing tools and
grounding / embodiment.
For sysadmin work, the main obstacle is having (something like)
hands to
open boxes, power cycle, and that sort of thing. The other day
Claude Code
set up a multi-architecture Kerberos server for me with NFSv4.
Traditional software development is mostly done IMO.
Also, building architecture is done. Claude Opus is
surprisingly skilled
at building plans. That will only accelerate IMO.
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