r/webdev • u/Proud-Confidence7290 • Nov 26 '23
Question Will AI decrease demand and salaries?
Hello everyone.
I am new to web development and it goes well so far.
I'm bit scared of AI development. Let's say you needed 10 developers for a project before ChatGPT and now you need 8.
With the development of AI, we will need even less.
Why do people think AI won't decrease demand and salaries of web developers? It's logic for me, what am I missing?
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u/GodGMN Nov 26 '23
Super Mario Bros was coded by a team of eight people (if I remember correctly) and it took them two years to complete it. Once released, they said it was a bit half assed because they needed a bit longer to fully complete the game.
Nowadays with game engines, internet and better tools in general, you can code the fundamentals of Mario Bros alone as your first game dev project, from the damn basement of your parent's house and without any formal education in programming... within a damn week.
From that point on it would be just a matter of creating the levels themselves.
Did that decrease demand and salaries of game developers?
Fuck no. We haven't settled in just making Mario Bros. Now we make Red Dead Redemption 2, World of Warcraft, Baldur's Gate...
Even indie games are so far ahead the first Mario Bros that if you time traveled back to the 90s and told a game dev that Stardew Valley, Satisfactory or Factorio are indie games you'd blow their mind.
Something similar has happened in web dev too. Go and take a look at websites made in 2005 and tell me how long would it take you to replicate them all by yourself using modern tools and frameworks.
AI is not different from any of this. Just another tool you'll have to use.