"What do you do?"
"I am a software developer", I replied.
"Cool, so you write these code and algorithms and create these magical apps."
"Yeeyss.. K...
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Indeed, this is a very real concern, one with a substantial, economically-impactful downside. Moreover, many other white collar jobs (call center work springs prominently to mind) are also at risk of redundancy.
Much energy is expended in the media touting the benefits of AI, of how it will liberate workers (particularly software developers) of mundane tasks, and make them more productive. However, this is likely to only benefit a very small proportion of those workers, and, regrettably, it will do so at the expense of many of their colleagues.
I doubt, too, that those colleagues will be moving into other white collar roles,. This is the big difference between today's AI technologies, and past technological advancements: they seriously risk making jobs, right across the white collar sector, redundant.
So if one loses their software development role, it is doubtful they will find a similar software development role, or a call center role, or a data entry (or similar) role.
They will, instead, need to look to other sectors, perhaps such things as personal service roles (however, I am not not sure what the alternative opportunities are in India).
Not exactly the ideal application of a STEM degree, is it ?
Finally, while your focus is on India, white collar jobs in other countries are not immune to dislocation from AI-based technologies. We are all in the same boat.
I wonder how politicians will manage this likely dislocation ?
Perhaps they will (finally) be motivated to persuade those behind these changes to better understand, and act on, their social responsibilities.
Its called a golden leash or a "prison made out of gold".
Ultimately you have only few choices
Entrepreneurship
If you feel like your intelligence, skills, creativity is underused and you are not valued enough, have you tried creating a startup that does the same thing as the legacy software at a fraction of the cost, because you can skip all this dead weight?
It may be a very drastic change and you have to let go of your safe environment/pay, it may require a tremendous amount of courage, but I do not see how companies who are this inefficient can remain competitive and viable. Do you have coworkers who feel the same way? Do you have friends who have business that need technological solutions or other social connections?
This was a tough post to read and really take in. I often think about this, but since I've never worked through it (US based), I'm only a casual witness to the scenario. Thanks for sharing this perspective of DEV and am looking forward to part two.
Not everyday you get to read something like this on dev. Well said.