[Me & X] Is Eric Schmidt right?
X: Is Eric Schmidt right about software engineers being replaced?
Me: Lol, yes he has gone very quiet on that subject.
X: So, he is wrong?
Me: Well, software engineers will be replaced by computational product realisers, machine collaboration architects, digital workflow synthesisers, technology decision auditors, AI enablement strategists, Human-AI systems integrators, codebase curators, technical debt reconciliation officers, platform realisation facilitator ... I'm sure he'll pretend that is what he meant.
X: Who the hell are those people?
Me: AI wranglers / Agentic herders.
X: What the hell is that?
Me: Software engineers wrangling agents. Just don't tell Eric or your board if you've said something daft like "we're getting rid of software engineers".
X: Any examples?
Me: It's still emerging but there is a slow and inevitable path to the AI wrangler. Welcome to Gas Town.
X: What's missing?
Me: Understanding but for that we need to change tools and turn software engineering into an engineering topic (talk to Tudor Girba)
X: What tools do we need?
Me: Contextual ones. "You can't buy them, you'll have to build them." Don't worry, you'll be wrangling the AI agents to build those as well. We've got a good few years to go before the practices really start to converge. It's early days.
X: Should I be putting this into production?
Me: Now? I'd caution you to be learning, experimenting, prototyping, adapting and developing the skills. You certainly don't want to become the next Knight Capital.
X: Who's that?
Me: A company that lost comprehension of its IT and paid the price for this. It lost over $400M in about 45 minutes. We'll need a few of those for the practices to converge, try not to be that example.
X: But my company is getting rid of software engineers.
Me: Well, they can join the long list of companies that will learn the lesson of Jevons Paradox and be involved in the mad scramble to hire AI wranglers (aka, the software engineer you got rid of but at inflated prices).
X: But AI will replace humans.
Me: "AI will mostly replace tasks." This was pretty clear back in 2021 (attached). You might want to spend less time with Eric or ChatPPT consultants.
X: Who the hell are they?
Me: They're like PPT consultants but replaced with AI. This is one of those cases where replacement is probably a good idea.
X: PPT?
Me: PowerPoint. Think management consultants. Think McKinsey.
X: Aren't they being replaced with AI?
Me: Hopefully.
X: What will they do?
Me: What they always do, try and hide in Government by pretending they bring a unique blend of commercial skills ... with PowerPoint. Hmmm, we really should think about weaponizing them and then send them into Governments we don't like.
X: Anyone else?
Me: As I said back in 2016, the board is another good target - but they will see themselves as a special case.
Originally published on LinkedIn.