Why AI hasn’t replaced software engineers, and won’t
The article argues that AI has not caused mass layoffs among software engineers and is unlikely to do so. Evidence includes the lack of AI-related WARN filings in New York and the identification of core tasks—decision making, verification, and deep domain understanding—that resist automation. While AI can aid coding and some decision‑support activities, the human insight required for these tasks remains essential.
- ▪Data from the first year of New York's AI disclosure checkbox on WARN Act filings shows no company flagged AI as a factor in layoffs.
- ▪Surveys of software engineers indicate that most time is spent on meetings and debugging rather than pure coding.
- ▪Qualitative analysis identified three primary bottlenecks: deciding what to build, verifying delivered work, and deep human understanding of code, business, and environment.
- ▪AI tools can assist with typing code and some decision‑support tasks, but they cannot replace the deep contextual knowledge engineers provide.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Why AI hasn’t replaced software engineers, and won’t. Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kappor take on the question of AI job losses through the lens of a profession that is uniquely suited to AI disruption - software engineering. In this essay, we argue that there is enough evidence to reject the narrative that once AI capabilities reach a certain threshold, it will cause mass layoffs. Given that this is true even in a sector with very few regulatory barriers, most other professions are likely to be even more cushioned. The first good news is that the data still doesn't support the idea that AI is causing mass unemployment. In March 2025, New York became the first U.S. state to add an AI disclosure checkbox to WARN Act filings.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Simon Willison.
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