Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Research Developing An AI To Put Coders Out of a Job (mspoweruser.com)
jmcbain writes: Are you a software programmer who voted in a recent Slashdot poll that a robot/AI would never take your job? Unfortunately, you're wrong. Microsoft, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, is developing such an AI. This software "can turn your descriptions into working code in seconds," reports MSPoweruser. "Called DeepCoder, the software can take requirements by the developer, search through a massive database of code snippets and deliver working code in seconds, a significant advance in the state of the art in program synthesis." New Scientist describes program synthesis as "creating new programs by piecing together lines of code taken from existing software -- just like a programmer might. Given a list of inputs and outputs for each code fragment, DeepCoder learned which pieces of code were needed to achieve the desired result overall." The original research paper can be read here.
All you have to do is specify the requirements, then you can just graphically draw it and put the app together! That's it! That's all you'll ever need to do. And it will work, just like it did in the 90s.
Actually, it will work exactly like it did in the 90s. Which is to say not at all, and to store up a load of 4GL take-out projects for the early 2000s...
People don't know what they want. Part of a developer's job is figuring out what the client really needs from a vague and typically clueless spec. Since that involves looking at how things are already being done manually or with other software, talking to people, making suggestions, building prototypes etc. it is hard to see how an AI could have much success at it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yeah, my company has been working on this for over twenty years and is probably a world leader in the field and has been used to develop systems for as long as I've been around with it. It's the first I've heard anyone call it AI. I think it's due to the labeling of what's considered intelligent being dropped.