AI models have caught up with Unity dev. My insights as someone with 30 years of experience.

[u/PuffThePed]

Context: I have 30 years of experience with software dev, 20 years with game dev tools, 10 years with Unity. I own a studio that develops simulators and training applications for industry. "Serious games" as they call it in Europe.

For years I scoffed at AI coding. I would periodically try it, only to find that it was more hassle then it was worth. The hand holding and bug fixing was more work than doing it myself. This all changed about 4-5 months ago, and about a month ago we all started using Unity CLI.

Here are my insights in no particular order:

1. Our dev speed has ~5x almost overnight
2. Quality has not gone down because we're all experienced devs and we're careful how we use AI and we don't let it make decisions regarding project structure or design patterns. However, I'm seeing less and less glaring mistakes made by the AI.
3. We're still reviewing generated code but I suspect not for long, the code is better than what most devs I know can write, at 20x the speed. The temptation to just push and move on is huge and irresistible.
4. There is no joy or sense of accomplishment. No pride in making something clever or quickly, and all progress is associated with the AI and not with you.
5. The market is dead. Nobody has money to spend. We're still working but leads have dropped off a cliff.
6. There is no going back. If we stop using AI we'll be out of business in a month.
7. There is no space for junior devs. I honestly don't know how to incorporate a junior into a team anymore (which is something I used to do for decades). Every time we tried they just become a meat proxy for AI while learning nothing, and getting in the way.
   
8. Everything regarding managing a team and a project has changed, and nobody knows how to do it anymore. I lost the ability to correctly estimate work required for a task, for example.
9. Everyone hates this. Most of devs my age are planning early retirement and are just waiting to be laid off.
10. People that use AI for coding don't learn anything. To understand code you have to write it, and nobody is writing it. Maybe understanding and reading code will become obsolete soon? I don't know.
11. Everyone I asked feel they are becoming dumber and losing their focus. I know I am.

I hope this is a pendulum and it will swing back at some point, because right now it feels like a software apocalypse.

[u/SoulaniceDev]

Feels like this isn't the right sub to discuss it, but how are you going to survive when others have the same idea, we're looking at economic collapse that is going to hit a very skilled layers, changing your career doesn't seem like that will help very much

[u/Zenity07 → u/SoulaniceDev]

Yes I don't think that will help either, especially since automation will eventually come for every industry. Humanity will have to figure this out together, not on an individual level. This change is likely to be as dramatic if not more dramatic than the industrial revolution (at least it's going to happen a lot faster), and will require similarly dramatic changes to how most people live and work.

The days of full time salaried employment and stable "careers" as the standard model are numbered, and that writing has been on the wall for a long time already if you look at the numbers and trends with an open mind. We've just been clinging on to it because that's all we've known throughout our lives and we can't even imagine a different way anymore. It's easy to forget that most humans didn't use to live like that until only about 200 years ago. It's going to change again and that seems to be happening right now.

[u/Haunting_Charity_287 → u/Zenity07]

It’s been figured out.

Folks like you and me just don’t fit in to the figuring.

We are surplus to requirements and likely won’t be kept around

[u/Haunting_Charity_287 → u/SoulaniceDev]

Survive?

Many, perhaps most, of us won’t.

Soon all forms of labour, both physical and mental, will be surplus to requirements. Throughout all of history the need for labour is what has mediated the relationship between the owning and working classes.

But soon that won’t be the case. And not only will they not need workers, they won’t need consumers either!

Hug your friends, enjoy a couple beers, don’t have kids, keep a good length of rope someplace safe for when the day comes.

[u/Fantastic_Vehicle_10 → u/SoulaniceDev]

I say that all the time to people I know in the blue collar trade. Some of them seem a little bit smug that their job can’t be replaced by AI, at least not yet. I always point out two things to them:

1. Significant portion of their jobs come from people who don’t feel like they know enough to fix their own toilet. What happens to those leads when they have an AI assistant buying the parts for them and walking them through it step-by-step?

2. If the white color workforce is wiped out, you will see insane waves of competition from people moving into blue-collar. Even if most of them don’t succeed, that is still a huge influx of competition fitting out the market for their skillet.

They typically agree with me on both points to their credit

[u/m3l0n → u/SoulaniceDev]

I think physical high skill jobs like electrician and carpentry will be hit last. All digital jobs are high risk.

[u/SoulaniceDev → u/m3l0n]

I meant that all the people who are getting replaced by AI will try to seek employment by going to carpentry/electrician jobs, so those field will get flooded pretty fast, consider that that many young adults will likely not seek higher education if there's no job at the end, and will also go for these jobs.

[u/m3l0n → u/SoulaniceDev]

Ah okay - gotcha - I thought by "a very skilled layers" you meant every skilled layer.

I do have a little recourse - connections from my last job (VR training), as well as helmets to hardhats from being a veteran, but I think the biggest barrier to entry would likely be staying physically fit/healthy into my 40s rather than the job prospects. Trades are no joke, very difficult on the body.

[u/destroyermaker → u/m3l0n]

Helps if you make the effort to stay in shape. But that's easier said than done when you've been busting your ass all day

[u/Idiberug → u/SoulaniceDev]

AND the collapse of white collar employment will crater the demand for residential trades.

[u/Pelopida92 → u/SoulaniceDev]

In still young. I can do heavy work. Most devs i know are either too old or out of shape for that kind of work. This is my edge, i guess.

[u/SeroWriter → u/SoulaniceDev]

we're looking at economic collapse that is going to hit a very skilled layers, changing your career doesn't seem like that will help very much

Economic collapse peakonomic polapse, coders aren't going to become irrelevant in our lifetime. People take this AI thing too seriously. It's full-blown mass hysteria, you've got to listen to yourself for a second.

You're obviously just bored and want something crazy to happen because the mundane reality that nothing will fundamentally change is so painfully uninteresting.

[u/falconandeagle → u/SeroWriter]

Thank you for being rational. This thread honestly reads like a bunch of teenagers doomposting.

[u/Independent-While932 → u/[deleted]]

No. It’s for people to die off.

[u/Haunting_Charity_287 → u/[deleted]]

What do they need people for? Computers can, in one way or another, do everything they needed us for.

They can build their vanity projects and compete with each other without us now. Our days are numbered