Ask HN: What career will you switch to when AI replaces developers?

DGAP 18 points 17 comments March 07, 2026
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Discussion Highlights (15 comments)

r2ob

AI psychologist,the machines will need it.

damnitbuilds

There will be many new positions available: - Wing repairer for fairies. - Unicorn farrier. - Flying pig rental service.

jjgreen

Drug dealer, probably cheap drugs (since everyone is out of work).

mmarian

Doubt that devs will be completely replaced, but I'm considering moving into sales.

MrLey

AI never replace real developers

al_borland

IF. I don’t think the assumption in this question is a forgone conclusion.

victorbjorklund

Don’t think it will happen. It will just change what it means to be a developer.

bayarearefugee

AI is going to impact far more than just developers and likely cause unemployment rates in the 30-40% range which is much higher than even the Great Depression, so I'm thinking that becoming some sort of a criminal is likely.

asciii

AI Debugger

blueone

I will become a leader of the free human movement. So, my fellow people, follow me and rise up against AI and more importantly, the 1% who seek only to deploy AI to become even richer. Once we have succeeded, I will ask only for a peaceful island once owned by a former CEO so that I may live out the rest of my life peacefully; while the rest of you bicker amongst yourselves about how things should be, all while climate change slowly but surely brings us our inevitable fate.

nacozarina

off grid desert rat

rdiddly

AI won't replace the best of us, but it has already transformed my job into something much less enjoyable, so I have still been pondering this question. I once had a career in one of the "real" engineering disciplines, maybe I would go back to that. I'm also good at music, and we all know what a freaking goldmine that is!

segmondy

What's amusing is that developers who are the most technical competent instead of figuring out how to run these models locally are using cloud models and putting in their code and workflow in there, helping to train these models and drive themselves extinct. Kinda nuts that we are asking this question and that developers are #1 to be automated away. Amazing.

mrdependable

I see a future where AI is much less useful, either by human behavior or government regulation. We are only at the beginning of whatever this new period is.

tombert

I have no fucking clue. It's been kind of depressing me. Software and cartoon trivia are basically the only things I'm good at. No one wants to pay me for cartoon trivia and AI can do that better than me anyway, so the only thing that I really have for a potential career is software. For my entire career, only being good at software wasn't really an issue, but now I am wondering if I need to try and go back to university to study something else that can't be automated as easily, but I don't even know where to start.

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