‘Upgrade Or Get Replaced’: Expert Urges Indian Developers To Brace For AI Takeover
The implications of this shift extend to various aspects of society and the economy. Changes in technology can influence education, job training, and overall economic development. Innovation may also be affected by these ripple effects. It is important to consider the broader implications of technological advancements. The interconnected nature of society means that changes in one sector can have widespread consequences.
The ripple effects of this change could hit far beyond the tech sector, impacting everything from education and training to economic growth and innovation. As automation and artificial intelligence redefine job roles, India’s software workforce is set to undergo substantial transformations over the next decade. Warning about the same, risk analyst Manab Majumdar took to social media and said that “mediocre software developers will be redundant in the next 10 years.
In the LinkedIn post, Majumdar predicts the narrowing of the number of software engineers. He said, “There will be only the best software developers and IT support guys. The rest AI can do on its own." Elaborating further, he urges professionals not to dismiss the threat and worry about this, saying, “If you see India in 2000 vs 2025, nothing has changed much apart from the dominance of India in IT. If most of the mediocre software engineers lose their jobs, who will be the money spender in cities like Noida, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune?"
“Indian exports and the Indian economy will suffer permanent damage due to AI. Don’t forget—India is the backend house of the world. What AI will replace first? Backend jobs," she added. To cope with this threat, Majumdar lays out three steps. The first one is to update and upgrade one’s skills. Secondly, the user suggested having a second source of income which can take care of the basic needs, if not a luxurious lifestyle. Lastly, he recommends preparing well so that one can migrate towards more business-related jobs rather than pure coding roles.
Zoho Founder's Perspective
Not just Manab Majumdar, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu weighed in with similar views. Sharing a post on X (formerly Twitter), he wrote, “When people say ‘AI will write 90% of the code,’ I readily agree because 90% of what programmers ’write is ‘boilerplate’." The founder believes AI is already eliminating “accidental complexity," but humans still need to deal with “essential complexity." “In essence, AI can make mincemeat of patterns already discovered (by humans). Can it find new patterns? As with humans, that is much rarer, and a quality known as “taste" or “knowing where to dig" or “following a hunch or conviction all the way" is needed to discover new patterns. I don’t know if AI can do this. I don’t know if that can be brute-forced," he added.
Impact on Software Engineers
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agreed to this and stated that the development of AI models might eventually reduce the need for software engineers.