We haven't been meeting software demand." AI, in other words, may help humans write code faster, but we'll still want all the humans around because we need as much software as they can build, as fast as they can build it. One way to think about it is that for the past 50 years, we have been massively underproducing. "But it's unclear if there's any cap on the amount of software that humanity wants or needs. "There's only so much food that 7 billion people can eat," says Zachary Tatlock, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington. Sure, the arrival of the tractor threw a lot of farmers out of work. Perhaps, as the industry's sunnier forecasts are predicting, there's enough of a demand for coding to employ both humans and AI. Now, before we dive into this doomsday scenario, let's pause for a moment and consider the case for optimism. For better or worse, the rise of AI effectively marks the end of coding as we know it. Given the tech industry's rush to deploy AI, it's not hard to envision a near future in which we'll need half as many engineers as we have today - or, down the line, one-tenth or one-hundredth (Emad Mostaque, the CEO of Stability AI, has gone as far as predicting "there's no programmers in five years."). Google is also asking its developers to try out new coding features in Bard, its ChatGPT competitor. Amazon has built its own AI coding assistant, CodeWhisperer, and is encouraging its engineers to use it. Tech companies have rushed to embrace generative AI, recognizing its ability to turbocharge programming. By comparison, the introduction of the steam engine in the mid-1800s boosted productivity at large factories by only 15%. Those assisted by AI were able to complete tasks 56% faster than the unassisted ones. Researchers at Microsoft and its subsidiary GitHub recently divided software developers into two groups - one with access to an AI coding assistant, and another without. The reason? Large language models like the one powering ChatGPT have been trained on huge repositories of code. "AI was always supposed to automate dangerous, dirty tasks - not the things we want to do."īut one white-collar skill set, the study found, is especially at risk for being automated: computer programming. "We didn't think that would be the case," says Ethan Mollick, a professor of management at Wharton who studies innovation. The researchers also noted two patterns among the most vulnerable jobs: They require more education and come with big salaries. Their conclusion: 19% of workers hold jobs in which at least half their tasks could be completed by AI. Researchers at OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, recently examined the degree to which large language models could perform the 19,000 tasks that make up the 1,000 occupations across the US economy. Much has been written about how AI is coming for white-collar jobs. Those who have been doing the automating fear they will soon be automated themselves. Policymakers scrambling to futureproof the workforce stuck to one unwavering message: Learn to code! But in recent weeks, behind closed doors, I've heard many coders confess to a growing anxiety over the sudden advent of generative AI. Universities rushed to expand their computer-science programs. Even as new gizmos replaced other jobs, the people who wrote the instructions for the machines felt untouchable. ![]() A lot of the knowledge that I thought was special to me, that I had put seven years into, just became obsolete."Ĭoding, as an occupation, has long been considered a haven from the relentless advance of technology. "I had an existential crisis right then and there. ![]() "I never thought I would be replaced in my job, ever, until ChatGPT," he says. It didn't take him long to wonder what this meant for a career he loved - one that had thus far provided him with not only a good living and job security, but a sense of who he is. Whatever he threw at it, Hughes found that ChatGPT came back with something he wasn't prepared for: very good code. ![]() Then he quizzed it with the kind of coding questions he asks candidates in job interviews. So he signed up for an account and asked ChatGPT to program a modified tic-tac-toe game, giving the game some weird rules so the bot couldn't just copy code that another human had already written. But Adam Hughes, a software developer, was intrigued by artificial intelligence's much-ballyhooed aptitude for writing code. When ChatGPT was released to the world in November, most of us marveled at its ability to write rap lyrics and cover letters and high-school English essays. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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