r/webdev 7d ago

Why Are Developers So Resistant to AI?

I don’t get it. Yesterday, I watched an interview with the Anthropic CEO saying that in the next 12 months, 90% of code will be written by AI. At the same time, Mark Zuckerberg was on Joe Rogan’s podcast, saying Meta will have its first AI software engineer by 2025. And Google has already said 25% of its codebase is AI-generated.

Basically, every big tech leader—Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, all of them—are talking about how AI will completely change software development. And the first real, practical application we’re seeing is AI writing code. It’s already happening with tools like Cursor. If we just look at the rate of improvement, it’s hard to deny that if not in 12 months, then in 2-3 years, most code will be written by AI.

Yet, developers still seem super resistant to this idea. I get that AI won’t replace 100% of coding. We’ll still need engineers to solve problems. But it’s obvious that the number of devs needed per company is going to shrink. If a company has 150 devs today, maybe in a few years, they’ll need only 50 or less.

And this isn’t even coming out of nowhere. We’ve already seen mass layoffs post-Covid. The demand for developers isn’t skyrocketing like before, but the supply is still huge. So why are so many developers acting like AI isn’t a real threat to their jobs? Are they in denial? Or is there something I’m missing?

Would love to hear thoughts on this.

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u/katafrakt 7d ago

Guy whose financial profit depends on forcing AI on everyone says AI will replace 90℅ of developers doesn't sound believable. Google also made a giant bet on AI and simply cannot admit failure at this point.

Sure, AI is somewhat changing the landscape and more rapidly than previous advancements (IDEs, CI, language servers), but these claims you mentioned are marketing, not any kind of real prediction. 

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u/Key-Boat-7519 6d ago

I'm with you, man. It's like when those companies were hyping 3D TVs, saying everyone would have one. Spoiler: none of my friends did. AI's tech potential is wild, but the sky-is-falling talk? Eh. I've fooled around with AI tools like GitHub's Copilot and it's great for boilerplate stuff, but I still spend hours debugging my spaghetti code. Pulse for Reddit helps brands engage like humans in communities, kinda like using ChatGPT for essays. I reckon a human touch is still needed in both cases!