About whether GPT-4 writing code from pasted specs makes software engineers unnecessary.
Has this happened?
Yes 52 (39%)Not sure 29 (22%)No 53 (40%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether GPT-4 writing code from pasted specs makes software engineers unnecessary.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
IMHO you described the hardest part of an engineer's job: documentation, instructions, requirements, specifications, etc. To get all this, you need to listen to the client, and understand and negotiate with his unrealistic demands. And even when you have all this information, you'll have to sort it and follow all kind of processes before it's useful. I'll be worried when AI can do this.
For now, it seems to be limited to writing Python scripts using a specific API, not something I do for my daily tasks. I'm more worried for people who could have been replaced by a simple script 30 years ago. Also I'm skeptical about whether or not companies will tell all their secrets to this kind of tool (but I could be wrong, Office 365 has all the secrets of the world).