Yes, AI will "take" your job. No, you won't mind
Folks keep asking if AI is going to take their coding job and I always have the same answer. Here it is.
Yes. No. Both.
I said early last year that the programming SEO tutorial industry is dead. If your job is writing "How to X in Y" articles, that job is dead and you should get out. LLMs can write those articles in seconds, on-demand, customized to the reader. You'll never compete.
AI is like 2 earlier technology waves
But if your job is solving business problems by writing code, I think you're safe. Better off even!
From what I've seen, generative AI for programming is like 2 previous technology waves:
- AI is like compilers
- AI is like google
Both were hugely beneficial to programmers. Barriers to entry got lowered, programming became cheaper, and software ate the world. Because automation got cheap enough to be worth doing.
Cheaper programming (in terms of time and effort) is good for you. It grows demand. The whole reason coding AIs (and no-code tools) are even interesting is because there is more demand for coding than there is supply.
AI is like compilers
Here's one of my favorite passages from Richard Hamming's The Art of Science and Engineering. I think of it every time programming olds start fighting with programming youngs around AI not being good enough and hrmph prhm get off my lawn you cant even ...
Early compilers couldn't do much. They managed memory so you could write code and let the computer figure out how that translates to memory addresses.
This offended TRUE proGRAMmers and they considered anyone using early compilers to be a newb who doesn't even understand how computers really work. If kids learn to code like this, how will they ever understand anything!?
Sound familiar?
60 years later and we think python is "low level" 🤣
I remember my high school teacher in the early 2000's saying that python is dumb because "python is a kiddie scripting language that TRUE proGRAMmers would never use. Focus on C and assembler, kiddo! That's the good stuff!!"
(yes I had coding as part of my high school curriculum)
AI is like google
This is a technology wave I experienced – when programming help became widely available on the internet and Google could find it. Smack dab in the middle of my peak learning and exploration period in high school.
I remember when StackOverflow was new and exciting. When kind internet strangers would answer questions on forums and IRC right after other strangers called you a damn newb. Good times.
Here's what the olds had to say about this ~20 years ago:
"Swiz, you spend too much time on the internet. You realize half these answers are wrong, subtly incorrect, or actively misleading right? You should be talking to professionals."
But you know what? Those bad answers unblocked me! They let me tinker and explore and figure things out. The computer will tell you, if what you've built doesn't work.
Nevermind that I didn't have access to professionals. They were busy, on the wrong side of the ocean, or thought my problems were too painfully stupid to bother with. I didn't have time for the gatekeepers, there were features to ship!
AI is bringing up the skill floor
Here's what AI is doing – it's raising the skill floor of programmers. People with less training can do more faster.
The olds are terrified because a little bit of slope beats a lot of y-intercept. You're catching up faster and that makes them scared. Because they lazy and don't want to adapt.
I agree with David Autor, labor economics professor at MIT – if AI can make everyone 20% better and the top-end 70% better, that's great! The cheap end gets better and those who need the best can get an even betterer best.
Cheers,
~Swizec
PS: the other debate I see is "should we allow AI in interviews". This is the same as 20 years ago we debated "should you google in an interview" – is the job to get things done or to memorize trivia and solve cute coding puzzles?