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With AI looming, is there still space for new coders? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by d0ct0r0nline@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev

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For some background, I originally wanted to break into programming back when I was in college but drifted more into desktop tech support and now systems administration. SysAdmin work is draining me, though, and I want to pick back up programming and see if I can make a career out of it, but industry seems like it could be moving in a direction to rely on AI for coding. Everything I've heard has said AI is not there yet, but if it's looking like it hits a point where it reaches an ability to fully automate coding, should I even bother? Am I going to be obsolete after a year? Five years?

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[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 15 points 9 months ago

Currently, the bottleneck is available developers

The bottleneck is developers competent to code in each specific domain. We have nowhere near enough, even for the most popular subject - writing an eCommerce store.

Source: Let's all play a quick round of "think of every eCommerce site you don't hate." Okay, now let's all try to think of a second one. Anyone still trying for three?

The specific domain list is, I suspect, currently uncountable.

Twenty five years from now, I suspect we can get a ballpark approximate count of developer specializations by starting at the top of the popular WordPress plugins list, and stopping when we start hitting obvious duplicates.

After that, we can compare that count to the known number of tailored-to-purpose AIs available.

Subtract the two, and that's the remaining runway on "AI is taking all of our jobs". (If feeling generous, add a bit of leeway for each AI also needing some time to stop sucking.)

Source: I'm part of the AI problem/solution. It's fun times, but y'all excited folks are going to be disappointed for a long while, unless you're incredibly satisfied with what you already have.

Even when we reach true sentient AI (which may still be impossible), there will be an uphill road to teach it each domain we want it to work in.

Teaching humans is difficult. Teaching computers is difficult. Teaching a computer that thinks like a human might be much easier.

Perhaps it will teach itself at an incredible speed. Some humans do. But history suggests that getting each AI up to speed, in each domain we need it for, will still be...difficult.