About whether AI tools can replace software work when business rationale lives only in people's heads.
Has this happened?
Yes 38 (28%)Not sure 44 (33%)No 52 (39%)
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 AI tools can replace software work when business rationale lives only in people's heads.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
This captures succinctly the one of the key issues with (current) AI actually solving real problems outside of small "sandboxes" where it has all the information.
When an AI can email/message all the key people that have the institutional knowledge, ask them the right discovery questions (probably in a few rounds and working out which bits are human "hallucinations" that don't make sense). Collect that information and use it to create a solution. Then human jobs are in real trouble.
Until that AI is just a productivity boost for us.