Introducing .. the AIrchitect..
Also, code in a new AI reality, will probably be mostly throw away code; you don’t need to repair a function; you just give the ai the input and output where it fails + the code of the function and it’ll give you a new one which might or might not be completely different from the previous one.
If this is just fancy auto complete to you then neat.
> you just give the ai the input and output where it fails + the code of the function and it’ll give you a new one which might or might not be completely different from the previous one.
I spent three days chasing down a bug in our codebase with a repro. I’ll run the problem through ChatGPT but I feel like even if I give it the two functions involved and surrounding boilerplate pointing at those two functions, with tests the answer will be gibberish. My basic understanding is that chatgpt’s and copilot’s capability here is doing this for the kinds of things that are toy examples only where the scenario is both carefully constructed and the problem quite obvious. Is that not the case? Don’t get me wrong. I’m 100% on board that this is a fascinating direction and we will get there and it’s going to be great. I’m just saying the base level of competence hasn’t been met yet and so I’d use it as a teaching tool but I’d ban it in a professional environment for most code (not all) until it’s way more mature. It’s just going to do more damage than it’s worth. I look forward to a future where I can give AI higher level instructions of what to change in the codebase and I just need to peripherally review what it did. That and product leadership and upper management is a secure job path. Everything else. Well… good luck? And I am clear. I will go before product leadership and executives. But that means we have AI that’s experienced at building software with minimal input. You can just start your own business and that’s so fantastic. It lowers the barriers to software development so that more people can compete in business. That will be an interesting society to observe.
You are describing 99% of programmers, many whose life and their family depend on this job which now is almost no longer a job.
What I am trying to say is, work for a defense contractor.
If human workers become obsolete, do we want to continue with capitalism, now with no more labor checks on those that already own everything, with the Bezoses and Musks controlling everything while the rest of us live in squalor?
Or do we want to usher in a Star Trek - Style technoutopian socialism, where humankind is provided for by technology, freed from the shackles of work and able to explore its interests for their own sake?
I will not be surprised if we end up with an organization composed of people like us, that looks a lot like the medieval Masons, keeping the internet going while everyone else just talks to it at ubiquitous terminals.