Will software engineers get replaced in 6 months?

Anthropic’s CEO keeps making headlines for saying software engineers will be replaced in six months.

And he isn’t alone.

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jensen Huang have all said something similar.

I posted the following on X this week: “Software engineers will not be replaced in six months.” 49,000 people have seen it, and 141 people have replied so far.

Many people argued that I was wrong, and that it would happen sooner.

This isn’t a trivial debate: whether or not this happens will have massive economic consequences.

One thing is certain: AI has changed how everyone writes code.

We are hearing more and more stories about software engineers who don’t even read the code AI produces and just push it straight to production.

This raises two questions.

The first is whether that is sustainable or will result in a “slop code apocalypse” that software engineers will have to clean up.

The second is whether AI can reach a point where it can make high-level decisions as good as, or better than, a human.

Software engineering is not all about writing code. A software engineer must interface with all project stakeholders, decide which features to build, write the specification, and architect the solution.

I use the latest models like Opus 5.5 and Astra to code every day, and unless there is a massive, earth-shattering breakthrough in the next six months, these models can’t do all that without human help.

Will they get there eventually? Maybe. But I don’t think they’ll get there in six months.

As for a “slop code apocalypse,” I actually think this is unlikely.

AI’s ability to write code is accelerating at an unbelievable speed, and I do think we are getting close to a point where human code reviews will be unnecessary.

AI already writes and runs its own tests, and it’s getting better at catching its own mistakes just as fast as it’s getting better at writing code.

Which means the future of software engineering hinges on high-level decisions and whether AI can match our ability there.

I have no idea if that’s possible.

And anyone who tells you they know the answer probably has a financial interest in it being true.

But I would bet $10,000 that six months from now, software engineers will still be employed.

If anyone wants the other side of the bet, let me know.

To be clear, I only lose if not a single software engineer is employed in the United States on Thursday, April 22, 2027.

Of course, nobody will take it, because nobody truly believes software engineers will be gone in six months.

I’ve set a reminder to write a follow-up in exactly six months and will talk about whether I was right.