Software Engineers Cannot Be Luddites About AI

Summary

The essay argues that software engineers have little basis for treating AI automation as uniquely unacceptable because software engineering has always derived value from replacing paid human work with faster, cheaper machines. It points to commercial software and industries such as video rental, typesetting, travel agencies, typing pools, data entry, and trading-floor support as examples of work transformed or largely displaced by software. The author distinguishes modern engineers from the textile workers commonly associated with the Luddite movement: engineers are compared instead with the mechanics who built power looms and other machines, even though those mechanics were later displaced by less-skilled labor as manufacturing methods improved. The essay says software engineering can feel like solving elegant technical puzzles from inside the profession, but its broader social function is automating tedious tasks. It acknowledges that automation has produced both major benefits and serious harms, and says the author is uncertain about technology’s overall balance. Even so, the author argues that engineers have historically participated in technological progress and should not suddenly oppose it when automation reaches their own profession. Engineers who believe such disruption is wrong, the essay concludes, should apply that judgment consistently to their own work rather than deny that AI can produce working software.