Former WH Advisor Pushes Back On Job Loss Fears, Says 'AI Has Dramatically Lowered The Cost Of Writing Code'

Former White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks said AI is lowering the cost of writing software and increasing overall demand for engineers, arguing that job growth in tech is rising despite fears of automation-driven layoffs.

AI Coding Surge Drives Software Expansion

On Sunday, in a post on X, Sacks questioned why software engineering job postings continue to rise despite rapid advances in AI coding agents.

He argued that the answer lies in expanding demand for software itself, not job replacement.

"AI has dramatically lowered the cost of writing code," Sacks wrote, adding that there is now "far more code to manage than ever before."

He also cited a reported "14x YoY increase in GitHub commits," claiming the trend reflects accelerating software production across companies and industries.

Sacks said the lower cost of development is fueling broader adoption of custom software, stating that coding has become "AI's breakout use case this year."

He added that the industry is seeing "a massive productivity boom driven by the proliferation of bespoke software throughout the entire economy."

He concluded that increased efficiency is expanding the total volume of work rather than shrinking it, challenging predictions that AI will trigger widespread layoffs in tech.

AI Coding Boom Reshapes Software Development

Earlier, OpenAI President Greg Brockman said AI coding tools had surged from writing about 20% of developers' code to roughly 80% in just one month, calling the shift a fundamental change in how software is built.

Andrej Karpathy also said AI agents had dramatically altered his own workflow, stating he had barely written any code in recent months as systems increasingly handled programming tasks.

He said he had not typed "a line of code" since December and described delegating most work to AI agents capable of executing complex instructions.

Meanwhile, Airbnb Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB) reported that AI generated 60% of its new code in the first quarter as it posted an 18% revenue increase to $2.7 billion.

CEO Brian Chesky said one engineer could now perform work that previously required a team of 20, with AI agents operating under human supervision.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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