I mean I'm still waiting for the impact of Tabnine/Copilot that people talked about last year. I'm in the camp where a charitable view is needed and AI will actually give us more power. You still need to know what is doing and be wary of any "overconfidence/hallucination". Let's say that it gets really good and now a senior developer could do the job of other 5-10 devs, God knows how; that could also mean that a lot of small to medium companies would be able to immensely pump their productivity, more with less and all, and perhaps more growth and openings.
Maybe I'm not seeing the leopard that will eventually eat my face, but in the worst case scenario, I don't think it's happening quite that fast, and if it is, it's probably more boring than we are imagining, unseen consequences and all. It's just that hard to predict the future.
For sure, I asked chatGPT to generate code for a certain embedded device to interface with a specific pH sensor and the result was totally bananas.
There is no reason to believe that niche and bespoke requirements will be swallowed up in an efficient, reliable, repeatable package in the very near future. It can be taught, and will be, but I don't think it'll be too snappy.
> immensely pump their productivity, more with less and all
The more I use chatGPT, the more I think this is the case. There are too many loose ends to tie, too many semantics to clarify and realign, and so on. It's immensely powerful today, but perhaps we sometimes forget how much we've learned and how far we've come.
I felt a little doomed on my first go with chatGPT, but now the shock has worn off. I'm optimistic that it'll be a useful tool. The more I play with it, the better I get at prompting it, the more I think alright – I can actually see this being useful one day. It might actually be a useful way to rubber duck problems, generate stubs, review rudimentary implementations for improvements, etc.
Given its current limitations and how deep they are entrenched by limitations of its design, I suspect it will require a significant breakthrough to overcome them and truly replace people.
> could also mean that a lot of small to medium companies would be able to immensely pump their productivity, more with less and all, and perhaps more growth and openings.
This is where my mind has been as well - I feel we're heading towards a future that will benefit small business - but I don't want to be overly optimistic.
Maybe I'm not seeing the leopard that will eventually eat my face, but in the worst case scenario, I don't think it's happening quite that fast, and if it is, it's probably more boring than we are imagining, unseen consequences and all. It's just that hard to predict the future.