The Jevons Paradox Explains Why AI Will Create More Software

The author argues that cheaper AI-assisted software development will increase rather than reduce total software output, citing the Jevons paradox from William Stanley Jevons's 1865 book The Coal Question, which also applied the argument to labour and the sewing machine. He contrasts cases where efficiency gains kept workers employed (seamstresses, bank tellers after ATMs) with telephone operators displaced by mechanical switching, and notes that software output is rising faster than developer headcount. He bets on far more small, disposable software while expecting narrow programming roles to shrink and developer roles to grow slowly.