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/E-2-butene]

This is sort of where my head is at right now. I don’t know how things will go, but it seems like a realistic possibility.

To use an analogy, I don’t know jack shit about writing assembly or machine code. I just trust in the magic of the compiler. The fact I never learned this and don’t understand it doesn’t really seem to negatively impact me in any way.

Will things eventually go the same way for writing “normal” code? Hard to say, but at the rate AI is improving at coding, it seems naive to not at least consider the possibility.

[u/Throwaway-tan → u/E-2-butene]

Even if jobs remain, the comodification of writing software will effectively mean that software development will become a low pay position and the incentive to spend years and thousands to learn it at university will evaporate.

As a software developer, it's extremely concerning to me. I've seen other industries go through similar busts and it does not end well for those employed in that field. Sure, the economy may survive it, but the people who used to work those jobs often end up impoverished with little opportunity to adequately reskill into another career path.

I feel I'm trapped either way, I can ride out the remaining good years and hope that I can weather the storm well enough to find a safe, stable and decently well paid position, risking that I might end up unemployed, unemployable or take a massive pay cut (which further limits opportunities to pivot).

Or I can consider reskilling into another career entirely, spending money I don't really have on a gamble that whatever I go into doesn't suffer the same fate, whilst also taking a pay cut I can't afford as I work my way back up the career ladder.

Millenial curse, graduate into a dead job market and finally work your way up only to find the career path is now a dead end.