Why AI Hasn't Replaced Software Engineers, and Won't (Narayanan and Kapoor)

Summary

Simon Willison highlights a new analysis by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor (the "AI Snake Oil" authors) examining why the widely predicted AI displacement of software engineers has not materialized — and why they argue it won't, at least not in the form the hype implied. The core argument is that software engineering is dominated by tasks AI tools are still weak at: understanding messy existing systems, navigating ambiguous requirements, integration work, and the accountability that surround