Jevons Paradox and Software Engineering in the age of AI

These days, everyone keeps talking about how we’re all going to be replaced by AI. Let’s first quickly clarify that part. If you really think that’s true, then you might want to revisit what Software Engineering is really about. Hint: it’s not just about endlessly typing out words that machines understand.

In order to explain how I see it, we first need to talk about Jevons Paradox (and you’re probably even struggling to pronounce it as you read, I did too, no lie). So, what is it? Back in the 19th century, there was a guy named William Stanley Jevons, an economist from England, after whom this paradox is named. And since you don’t just get something named after you for no reason—what did he notice? He observed that as coal-powered steam engines became more efficient and started consuming less coal per unit, total coal consumption actually increased.

Why would consumption increase if each engine was using less coal? That’s exactly why it’s called a paradox. While the consumption per engine may have decreased, the widespread adoption of steam engines across various industries skyrocketed, which led to an overall increase in coal consumption.

So, you might ask: what does some random 19th-century story about coal and steam engines have to do with Software Engineering and AI? Actually, I think it has a lot to do with it. Using AI in Software Engineering may not reduce the amount of "coal" needed to run a software engineer (so to speak), but it is going to make product development more efficient, that's for sure. Increasing efficiency of product development will eventually lead to more industries adopting software solutions, which could even, in the long run, increase the demand for software engineers.

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Worst-case scenario? I’m totally wrong about this, and we all lose our jobs to AI and become farmers.

That doesn’t sound so bad… right?

Until farmers get replaced by AI farmers. 🌾🤖