A lot of people have claimed that AI will replace software developers. My reaction is "I wish". I've literally never had more work since AI went full hockey stick. In my AI company I've got more work than I can handle these days.
To illustrate the reason why my job feels very secure these days, let's imagine a prompt required to create an HTTP endpoint in my own platform.
Create an HTTP endpoint that requires JWT authentication with RBAC protection for the roles 'foo' or 'bar'. Then have it open up a database connection towards my CRM database and return name and email from my contacts table. Allow for filtering on names containing some specified filtering condition
The above is a typical prompt you could imagine somebody asking ChatGPT to solve. The problem is that unless you're a software developer, your reaction to the above would be roughly as follows ...
WTF is HTTP, endpoints, JWT, authentication, RBAC, and roles. And while we're at it, WTF is a table, and what does filtering imply?
The problem is that in order to have the AI being able to create code today, you need to understand "the lingo." Understanding the lingo requires decades of training. So at least in the foreseeable future, there's simply no way in hell that "normal people" can create complex software. You still need a developer. Sure, that developer becomes more productive with AI, but you still need a dev head in there some place ...
AI will simply never replace the software developer, because you need to be a software developer to give it instructions
This doesn't mean we're not in for a rough ride due to AI, quite the contrary, everything is about to change ...
SalesForce is going down!
Marc Benioff is the CEO of SalesForce. The last time I checked, his company was worth about 243 billion dollars. That's an over estimation of roughly 242.900 billion dollars if you ask me.
The reason is because any schmuck mediumly skilled in software development can create a better SalesForce in a couple of hours. And I don't mean "a little bit better", I mean fundamentally better, as in 1,000,000x better.
This is why Marc has announced "completely pivoting SalesForce into full scale AI." However, it's futile Marc, sorry - You can go home, and let the big boys handle it from here ...
AI changes the way we work
2 years ago you needed frontend developers. This was 70% of the work related to delivering a software project. Today this is no longer true. You can create a single frontend with an input textbox, a response surface to render the AI's responses, and this single frontend can replace 100% of every single software frontend we've ever created. I would know, I've created one ...
In addition, once you've got the middleware connected to for instance OpenAI's APIs, you've got reusable backend components allowing you to deliver the middleware in hours instead of years. I would know, I've got one ...
Then when you've got AI functions, you can instruct the LLM to execute functions for you given some instruction by the user. I would know, I've got them.
Using the above 3 primary low-code and no-code AI components, I can basically create a better SalesForce in a couple of weeks. And I literally mean 1,000,000 times better than the crap Marc is selling.
To illustrate the point, please realise I am currently creating no less than 3 AI chatbot SaaS companies for 3 different clients. This would be a job requiring 15 developers a couple of years ago, working full time for a year - But today I'm pulling it through alone, in some 30 hours of work per week - And I'm done in a couple of weeks!
The Death of UI
5 years from now, UI frontend developers will probably not even exist. The reason is because everything is using the same UI. A textbox taking input, and a surface rendering the LLM's response. Optionally maybe a microphone icon to make it possible to speak to the machine. Our users will ask questions such as:
- What's Peter Jensen's phone number?
- Dictate an email and send to Nora
- When is my next meeting with Aurora?
Then the AI will persist any state changes to your database 100% automatically into your backend, and execute whatever functions are required to follow your instructions. Instructions again are specified using natural language, which is simply a superior way to instructing the computer compared to a "UI." UIs were "a hack" required because we couldn't use natural language. Now we can. This makes every single app we've ever created obsolete! Literally!
And replacing our existing apps takes a seasoned developer such as me, with a mature AI platform such as mine, a couple of hours. Marc Benioff's software is simply not relevant anymore. It's "obsolete" ...
Sorry Marc, I'm simply better than SalesForce
A Single Developer outperforming 1,000,000 developers
These changes combined makes it possible for a solo entrepreneur like me to literally deliver more value than 1,000,000 "traditional" software developers. I basically run around them in circles. I would know, because I'm literally doing it.
Today I've got a handful of clients I'm actively doing custom work for. They're paying me $170 per hour, and all of these are either on a $298 or a $498 subscription plan, implying once I'm done with them, they'll keep on paying me 300 to 500 dollars per month to host their end result.
I can deliver custom AI solutions to roughly 3 to 5 such clients per month, implying every single month my monthly recurring revenue is increasing by some $1,600. This comes in addition to the hours I'm billing my clients.
Individually, each of these companies basically uses me as their entire software development department. This implies I'm literally doing the job for 5 complete software development departments these days - A job that would in a traditional world require at least 25 full time employed software developers. And I only work with this for some 25 to 35 hours per week.
This implies that me as a single person is basically delivering in 30 hours per week more productivity than what you'd expect 25 people to be able to deliver a couple of years ago. And I'm also delivering roughly 10x faster, so add another order of magnitude to that productivity metric.
This isn't unique for me. Sure, I've got a 5 year head start due to having started on Magic Cloud in 2019 - But I'm sure there are a lot of others out there in similar positions as me. Individual software developers capable of delivering not 10x, not 100x - Not even 1,000x - But rather in fact 1,000,000x. Basically individual consultants and solo entrepreneur outsourcing companies such as mine, capable of delivering value that dwarfs the entire productivity of behemoth organisations such as SalesForce combined!
And "old money" simply cannot compete in this world, because they're used to simply throwing more resources at the problem, hire like crazy, burn through piles of cash the size of Mount Everest - And traditionally this used to work. Today it doesn't work anymore, because the companies ahead in this race, are companies such as mine, and we're not selling out!
I literally don't care of Marc Benioff offered me a trillion dollars for my company - I'd still tell him to go fuck himself! I'm simply not interested in selling. Because it's not about the money, it's about the good life.
The things Marc can't give me
When I'm done publishing this article, I'll go take a dip in the sea. The sea is still about 30 degrees down here where I live, and it's 50 meters from my front door. Then I'll go to the local coffee shop, get myself a Fredo Espresso and maybe a water bagel for breakfast. Later today, I'll go to the city and buy a fresh juice, and say hi to Chris. Maybe I'll meet a friend tonight and have some beers with him. My wife is in Agia Napa visiting a friend, so I can easily imagine tonight being a "boys night." Before I leave, I'll spend a couple of hours finishing off my backlog for 3 different clients though. This is a 1 hour job maybe.
In the above context, what do you have to offer me that I could possibly be interested in Marc Benioff? Hint, nothing!
Notice, I don't mean to pick on Marc Benioff and SalesForce in particular here. It's the same story for literally 95% of all the top 100 Nasdaq companies. They've got nothing, and we "the little man", we've got everything. And that's a good thing! Some would argue "it's about time" ...
You can go home now Marc. Try not to violate any more securities exchange regulations before you do though. Prison is a rough place ... 😂
Top comments (8)
i build complex websites that have complex ui, statemanagement and very hard to implement functionalities and most of the time the code generated by AI is so bad that I have had to rewrite stuff from scratch. It cant even create a simple svg properly and I am not a UI/UX guy and I still had to use an online svg tool for my personal project.
I literally handled that objection in the first or second paragraph of my article ...
You got innocent clients
No, I've got disruptive clients, willing to take a leap, and make a bet on the future. Not all are of course, but there's enough of these guys out there to make me happy ...
Super arrogant author, deserves to be humbled.
Perhaps, but it doesn't make him wrong. I think only in degree rather than trajectory. But I have similarly found possibilities, for integrating sip phones, speaker devices, smart tvs, and home automation, all under voice and text driven ai chats, rethinking the "smart" part of a smart home in the process. Executing functions then makes it possible to bridge the ai and the physical world, too.
GUI was always "a hack", because we couldn't produce user interfaces that allowed us to use our primary human features (speech and natural language) - Today we can. One would need to be extremely arrogant to not see how the latest couple of years does not somehow carry extreme changes to the way we develop applications ...
I speak to my peers, and my ancestors have done that for a million years, possibly longer. Then for the last 50 years, I've been forced to use "a GUI", which feels wrong, is wrong, but was a hack required to be able to have the computer understand my instructions. The evolution of computing is as follows:
It's a slow incremental improvement, and each generational shift created huge changes for the industry as a whole ...
Care to elaborate? Or are you too important to be bothered with explaining your view ...?
Or maybe your interests were exclusively in producing ad-hominem arguments ...?