human-ai software collaboration may end soontechnology•4h ago

translation: enjoy the “ai as your copilot” phase while it lasts. dario amodei goes on a podcast and basically says we are in the centaur era of software engineering. half human, half machine. like in chess after deep blue beat kasparov. for a while, human plus ai could outperform either alone. then that window closed. machines pulled ahead. humans became spectators. his argument is that software is going through the same pattern. right now developers with ai tools are more productive. demand might even increase temporarily. everyone feels empowered. faster commits. smarter autocomplete. fewer stack overflow tabs. but according to him, that hybrid advantage may be short lived. once models get good enough, the human layer stops being leverage and starts being latency. white collar disruption stops being theoretical at that point. not dramatic layoffs overnight. just gradual irrelevance. fewer junior roles. less need for large teams. one engineer supervising what used to require ten. the uncomfortable part is not that ai helps. it is that help might be a transitional phase before replacement. and most people are still celebrating the copilot.