Jevons Paradox: AI may lead to more software jobs
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An author uses the Jevons Paradox to argue that AI will not reduce software jobs: as software becomes cheaper, demand grows faster, resulting in more development work instead. The article cites Jevons's argument in the 1865 book The Coal Question—steam engine efficiency improvements actually drove up British coal production—and notes that Jevons himself also made an optimistic judgment about employment using the sewing machine. The author also cites the example of lighting prices falling more than 3,000-fold over 200 years while per capita usage rose 6,500-fold, arguing that demand elasticity determines whether savings stay within the industry. These are the author's arguments based on historical cases, not empirical conclusions about AI's actual impact on employment.
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- Hacker News AIThe 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.
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