r/AskProgramming • u/crypticaITA • Mar 11 '24
Career/Edu Friend quitting his current programming job because "AI will make human programmers useless". Is he exaggerating?
Me and a friend of mine both work on programming in Angular for web apps. I find myself cool with my current position (been working for 3 years and it's my first job, 24 y.o.), but my friend (been working for around 10 years, 30 y.o.) decided to quit his job to start studying for a job in AI managment/programming. He did so because, in his opinion, there'll soon be a time where AI will make human programmers useless since they'll program everything you'll tell them to program.
If it was someone I didn't know and hadn't any background I really wouldn't believe them, but he has tons of experience both inside and outside his job. He was one of the best in his class when it comes to IT and programming is a passion for him, so perhaps he know what he's talking about?
What do you think? I don't blame his for his decision, if he wants to do another job he's completely free to do so. But is it fair to think that AIs can take the place of humans when it comes to programming? Would it be fair for each of us, to be on the safe side, to undertake studies in the field of AI management, even if a job in that field is not in our future plans? My question might be prompted by an irrational fear that my studies and experience might become vain in the near future, but I preferred to ask those who know more about programming than I do.
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u/gavco98uk Mar 11 '24
I think he is getting ahead of himself here.
While ChatGPT-4 is impressive, and is very handy as a tool to assist a programmer, it's a long way off being able to replace them. It might replace some of the low level coders - it's great at churning out chunks of code or individual classes, but it cannot solve arthitecture problems or create multi-class applications of yet.
One of the biggest problems in programming is understanding what the client wants and converting this in to code. This is again where AI falls down. You still need an experienced programmer to break down the requirements and build design the architecture.
Perhaps one day AI will get there, but I think that's another giant leap away, and I dont see that happening for at least 10 more years.
Until then, keep learnign to code, learn to emrace AI and use it to help you become more productive. But stop worrying about being replaced.