Narayanan-Kapoor reframe AI coding data, Evans writes for her past self
Every URL the pipeline pulled into ranking for this issue — primary sources plus the supporting and contradicting findings each Researcher returned. Inline citations in the issue point back here.
Sources
Why AI hasn’t replaced software engineers, and won’t simonwillison.net
Why AI hasn’t replaced software engineers, and won’t Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kappor take on the question of AI job losses through the lens of a profession that is uniquely suited to AI disruption - software engineering. In this essay, we argue that there is enough evidence to reject the narrative that once AI capabilities reach a certain threshold, it will cause mass layoffs. Given that this is true even in a sector with very few regulatory barriers, most other professions are likely to be…
Quoting Julia Evans simonwillison.net
[…] Instead, I picture a specific person and I just write for them. Often this person is “me, but 3 years ago” or a good friend. — Julia Evans , write for 1 person Tags: writing , julia-evans
References
METR follow-up study (Feb 2026) metr.org
developers with significant experience in AI-specific workflows (such as ‘spec-first’ development) began to show speedups of approximately 18%
Stanford Digital Economy Lab — ‘Canaries in the Coal Mine’ digitaleconomy.stanford.edu
software developers aged 22 to 25 in highly AI-exposed roles experienced a relative employment decline of 13% to 16% since late 2022 … even as employment for developers aged 35 to 49 in the same firms grew by 6% to 9%
Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives hunton.com
162 companies filed WARN notices … not a single company checked the box to attribute layoffs to ‘technological innovation or automation’
Re-entry.ai citing CMU benchmark re-entry.ai
while 61% of code generated by advanced agents passed functional tests, only 10.5% passed rigorous security audits
Google/DORA 2025 State of AI-assisted Software Development services.google.com
telemetry data shows a 98% increase in pull requests merged at the individual level, yet end-to-end delivery metrics often remain flat
Zvi Mowshowitz, ‘AI #168: Not Leading the Future’ thezvi.substack.com
critics often fail to update their models as AI moves up the exponential curve … ‘mundane utility’ of AI is already undeniable
Chris Coyier on Julia Evans’ blogging chriscoyier.net
writers should ignore vanity metrics and prioritize the organization of their own thoughts, making the act of writing intrinsically rewarding regardless of reach
Austin Kleon — Stephen King’s ‘Ideal Reader’ austinkleon.com
King views the novel as a ‘letter aimed at one person’ … he often finds himself wondering what [his wife Tabitha] will think of a particular scene or joke
Gotham Writers — Vonnegut’s 8 Basics writingclasses.com
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Janice Hardy, ‘Kurt Vonnegut Can Bite Me’ blog.janicehardy.com
great writers often break his rules, citing Flannery O’Connor as an example of a master who defied conventional creative writing guidelines while still succeeding
Paws and Reflect blog (notes on Adam Grant) pawsandreflect.blog
the ‘writing for me’ mindset often falls into an ‘Ego Trap,’ where the author prioritizes their personal journey over the reader’s current needs
r/launchschool thread on Wizard Zines reddit.com
Evans applies four criteria for a zine topic: fundamental to computing, useful for daily work, stable over time, and possible to learn relatively quickly
