The current wave of AI technology will not lead to mass unemployment. In fact, its impact on the labor market should be minimal, consisting mostly of increasing demand for software engineers.
5:04 AM · Jul 1, 2026 · 89.1K Views
Keras and ARC-AGI creator François Chollet argues AI won't cause mass unemployment, predicting higher demand for software engineers
Story Overview
François Chollet and Aaron Levie both argue that today's AI tools are expanding work for software engineers rather than replacing them, and fresh employment data backs the pattern of rising demand even as code generation scales.
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Developer Impact
Senior roles multiply while juniors face tighter entry
Experienced developers are seeing more projects, architecture work, and a sizable salary lift for AI skills, yet hiring for new grads has dropped sharply in firms already using these tools.
Open Question
Net labor effects stay hard to pin down
Broad numbers on total jobs created or lost across the economy are still missing, leaving the long-term balance between productivity gains and role shifts an open question.
Sentiment
Positive users celebrate AI agents boosting software engineer demand by creating more workflows and building opportunities, while negative users argue long-term automation will replace teams and reduce human roles.
Pos
64.8%
Neg
35.2%
30 comments with sentiment.
Cluster Engagement
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VIEWS23.9KBOOKMARKS54LIKES138RETWEETS22REPLIES41
Aaron Levie@levie
The thing that you quickly realize the deeper you go into using AI is how much more technical work there will now be in the world because of agents.
The most powerful capabilities of AI agents are being able to write code, process data, and operate tools and computers. The people that can leverage this the most are engineers. This why the demand is only going to grow for technical skillsets.
We will have so much more work for engineers for building software and automating workflows now in every industry like legal, life sciences, financial services, manufacturing, and more. And now every SMB on the planet can build products and tools, which will take engineers to maintain and run that software going forward.
Great time to be an engineer.
François Chollet@fchollet
The current wave of AI technology will not lead to mass unemployment. In fact, its impact on the labor market should be minimal, consisting mostly of increasing demand for software engineers.
5hViews 23.9KLikes 138Bookmarks 54
Nikos Lygeros@Nikos_Lygeros
@fchollet The target of AI is not mass unemployment.
9hViews 249Likes 6Bookmarks 2
Yann Kronberg@zazmic_inc
@fchollet The growing demand for software engineers isn't the flat number people are looking at.
What I'm seeing is more demand for the ones who can tell when agents are wrong and less for the ones who just watch them do whatever they think is right. That's not the same as "more jobs"
10hViews 238Bookmarks 1
Twitar@Twitar42
@fchollet Does not make sense unless demand for software is unlimited. Business will have to offset the cost of AI somehow. It will collapse the job market just as machines did with agriculture back then. Your take is Wishful thinking or denial.
7hViews 184
hofman@hofman_eth
@fchollet Idiot, it’s already destroying some industries
10hViews 295Likes 6
Don Richard@DonaldRichard
@levie I’d also add as non-technical PM, that when you start building features and products with AI tools, you have a deeper appreciation of the engineering craft and you better understand technical decision-making and exploration
4hViews 51Likes 1
Max Rabinov@just_the_max
@fchollet seeing what ai videos models can already make, it seems some people will get fired from their jobs
10hViews 157Likes 4
Christian Catalini@ccatalini
@fchollet @perrymetzger The reality is we don’t know / don’t have great data to measure this just yet. So bold claims in either direction are just wrong.
8hViews 289Likes 3
@fchollet We used to need 4 people to dev an app for 12 months. It costed 400K in France. But the app only brang back 200K. Then, it was not profitable to do it. Now, we can do it in just 3 month for 100K, bringing 200K. It's then profitable. Lots of niches like that will create jobs
8hViews 138
Matt Parrott@MatthewParrott
@fchollet On account of the devolutionary impact on the industry, resulting in the work shifting towards forward deployed engineering, you'll have a confusing situation where Big Tech is firing like crazy but there are more software engineer jobs than before.
9hViews 430Likes 2
Fito Prolog@FProlog
@fchollet No, AI won't cause mass unemployment. It'll create a job market full of low quality jobs, ADHD bosses selling slop, and meme "agentic" LLM crap.
The biggest proof? Claude certification.
The absolute state of idiocracy.
5hViews 382Likes 2
Michal Wolski@michalwols
@levie Math is simple:
1. AI raises the floor for everyone to expert level 2. it raises the roof much further for experts in their field
there will be way more content, and the best of it will still be produced by people who master their craft
4hViews 22Likes 1
Aria Westcott@AriaWestcott
@fchollet Yeah every wave added jobs before.
None of them went after the entry level first like this one.
9hViews 561Likes 1
Sin@floppy_disk0
@fchollet juniors already can't find jobs.
10hViews 42Likes 3
Ankur Mittal@ankurmittal092
@fchollet I would want to believe that the demand for SWEs is going to increase
Although,
I feel if AI cost math checks out, a lot of labour arbitrage from India is going to take a hit.
9hViews 314Likes 1
Maciek Brzeziński@brzezmac
@fchollet There might be however local turbulences where middle management will cut senior jobs to justify their bonuses with explanation that juniors with agents are cheaper and the quality is the same. Seniors will come back after a stream of fuckups caused by that setup.
8hViews 799
rexicola@RexExLux
@fchollet right but misleading , cause a non negligeable part of software engineering was actually writing code…..so developer will be exctinct in a few month
9hViews 652
Umair Cheema@umairacheema
@fchollet Who has hacked this handle? An assertion without profound underpinning logic or concrete supporting evidence is very unlike our favourite AI intellectual.
9hViews 630
sidereal 🍀@sidereal111
@fchollet I will have a lot of fun posting this in your replies basically forever
8hViews 152Likes 1
Martin ⏹️@_martinkunev_
@fchollet I've been a software engineer for ~20 years and I haven't seen the job market as bad as it is now.
9hViews 136Likes 1
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