Ask HN: Academic study on AI's impact on software development – want to join?

25 pointsposted 6 hours ago
by research2026

Item id: 47590261

13 Comments

idrissbellil

4 hours ago

Will you in exchange publish the results/dataset for free?

research2026

3 hours ago

Happy to share the final peer-reviewed publication with research participants.

roguechimpanzee

6 hours ago

do I get a starbucks giftcard or anything?

research2026

5 hours ago

Thanks for asking! We're unable to offer compensation, but the insights you share will directly contribute to social scientific knowledge about AI’s impact on professional work and careers. Software engineering is at the forefront of this change and objective, academic research on the topic is still scarce. So we really appreciate everyone who volunteers their time to share their experiences and views on the topic.

kibibu

4 hours ago

I'm surprised your human research ethics board doesn't require you to indicate the benefit to participants

Did you get ethics approval for this? I can't see any reference to it on the survey

research2026

4 hours ago

I understand your concern, and thanks for asking for this clarification.

We have IRB ethics approval from NYU for the study. All the detailed information you are looking for is contained in the 'Research Informed Consent Form' that will be emailed to eligible research participants. After reviewing the informed consent form, you can choose to proceed or not with scheduling an interview. And of course, you can at any time withdraw your participation.

The link in the post is just a simple contact form giving us permission to contact potential participants and assess their eligibility (i.e. whether they are based in the US, whether they are software devs etc). And, if we hopefully get more responses than we need, the brief information contained in this form will help us sample participants based on company size or professional experience level.

You will see in the 'Informed Consent Form' that there are no direct benefits to participation. The study will contribute to social scientific knowledge about technology’s impact on professional work and careers. I hope this helps!

saadn92

6 hours ago

this is the right question to ask

Hasg1

3 hours ago

How would this self-selecting study be representative? It will be swarmed by paid AI shills.

The anti-AI people are already weary by having to contradict the $trillion industry, so they might skip this particular battlefield.

research2026

3 hours ago

HN is only one of our recruitment channels. We are definitely aiming for a balance of perspectives.