Proton’s AI manifesto for software engineering

For the last couple of decades, governments and others have been spending billions teaching people to code. It was thought to be one of the few professions that would be safe in a changing world, but as it turns out, writing and manipulating code is one of the activities for which AI models are most well-suited. Tech companies have laid off over 1 million employees in the last few years, and Microsoft offered 60,000 buyouts just last week. It is a terrifying and thoroughly disorienting moment for people in the software industry. About a month ago, I wrote an internal memo where I detailed the AI adoption path that Proton must follow to remain competitive and secure, and what we have missed thus far as an organization that we must rectify in order make this inevitable transition a success. There is little doubt that organizations which fail to transform quickly enough will ultimately…