Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, set Davos on fire by saying that software engineering is dead in a year because AI agents are taking over most coding jobs. Sridhar Vembu from Zoho, the no-nonsense bootstrap king, said, “Listen up, folks.” Amodei said that his own engineers hardly ever touch keyboards anymore. Claude Opus writes code, and they just make small changes and approve it. Tools for internal use? Not months, but weeks. He said that AI was going from being a sidekick to a star, riding “Moore’s Law for brains,” which means that brains double in size every three months.
The tech world is in shock. Amodei says that AI writes the code and humans polish it. Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft let AI work on codebases, and Copilot writes 46% of the time. Claude 3.5 Sonnet beats SWE-bench at 49% (humans 60%), with real GitHub fixes from start to finish. Vembu reposts because Zoho knows how to grind, and Anthropic does what it says it will do.
It’s speeding up. AI is great at grammar, templates, and grunt work, but humans are better at big-picture stuff like arch, specs, and weird edges. Amodei sees 100 development teams turn into 10 overseers. Agents reorganize files, connect APIs, and deploy on their own. Reddit’s argument: “Chill, specs are still human,” vs. “Agencies win—build’s free, sell the dream.” LinkedIn: AI does bits and we do hearts—logic vs. user soul.
There is a job quake coming. Amodei warns that whole fields, like coding, QA, and operations, could be wiped out. 200,000 layoffs in 2025; doubles in 2026. What are the benefits? New jobs in AI herding, ethics tuning, and epic planning—people as “adapt pros” (HBS vibe). Deloitte: 25% of companies are rebuilding around agents; Cisco bets 1:30 ratios by 2026.
People who don’t want to give up say no. LLMs lie 15–20% of the time, can’t handle new designs, and miss causal bug hunts. SWE ceilings stay up; we crush fuzzy stakes and client drama. “Changes, not dead,” Vembu said. India’s 3 million IT workers are working hard—Nasscom wants to improve AI skills. Some people call it peak hype, but Amodei’s OpenAI safety cred is very strong.
Pivots are moving. Palantir AIP is everywhere, and Salesforce Agentforce runs CRM. Replit and Cursor make more than $500 million on AI code toys. Walls fall: new players beat experienced players with Devin clones, software is cheap, but skills? Goods. Moats turn into channels, UX feels, and niche know-how. Marketing is booming.
Policy is asleep. Trump’s deregulation lets people go free; the EU calls agents risky. UBI talks get heated; Sequoia: AGI economy shift. “Adapt now,” Amodei said. Developers: Nail down the prompts, systems, and business fit. Code is a dime a dozen, but vision is gold.
Gartner wants 70% of AI code by February 27, up from 20%. Rumor has it that Opus 4 is going after 70% of the bench. Does it ring true? Eng becomes “AI cowboy,” and slowpokes get dusted. Vembu’s alert wakes up India, which has 5 million gigs online. Heat or hype? Davos vibes say it’s closing fast—builders are in trouble.
