Does the Rise of AI Precede the End of Code? (itproportal.com)

An anonymous reader shares an article: It's difficult to know what's in store for the future of AI but let's tackle the most looming question first: are engineering jobs threatened? As anticlimactic as it may be, the answer is entirely dependent on what timeframe you are talking about. In the next decade? No, entirely unlikely. Eventually? Most definitely. The kicker is that engineers never truly know how the computer is able to accomplish these tasks. In many ways, the neural operations of the AI system are a black box. Programmers, therefore, become the AI coaches. They coach cars to self-drive, coach computers to recognise faces in photos, coach your smartphone to detect handwriting on a check in order to deposit electronically, and so on. In fact, the possibilities of AI and machine learning are limitless. The capabilities of AI through machine learning are wondrous, magnificent... and not going away. Attempts to apply artificial intelligence to programming tasks have resulted in further developments in knowledge and automated reasoning. Therefore, programmers must redefine their roles. Essentially, software development jobs will not become obsolete anytime soon but instead require more collaboration between humans and computers. For one, there will be an increased need for engineers to create, test and research AI systems. AI and machine learning will not be advanced enough to automate and dominate everything for a long time, so engineers will remain the technological handmaidens.

Comments

When AIs write code

[XXongo]

More to the point, when AIs learn to write code better than human coders, the humans are no longer coders, they will instead be writing specifications for the code that the AI will write: essentially they will be managers for the AI.

Re:When AIs write code

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do we find a programmer skilled enough to program a program more skilled at programming than its programmer?

Citation needed

[Spy Handler]

In fact, the possibilities of AI and machine learning are limitless

Limitless... that's a pretty far-fetched claim.

I wasn't around during the turn of the last century, but judging from various literature of the period a lot of people back then had some pretty harebrained ideas too. Steam power and electricity and intricate brass gears were going to somehow give us miraculous stuff like time travel.

Re:That's called a compiler. Fortran 1957

[serviscope_minor]

With C, we got optimizing compilers that totally rewrite the specification, doing things in a different order, entirely skipping steps that don't end up affecting the result, etc.

We didn't. FORTRAN I was specificially designed with optimization in mind and in fact the first compiler was an optimizing compiler:

https://compilers.iecc.com/com...

But yes, your point is otherwise sound. What is run-of-the-mill compiler optimization today would have been AI in the days of FORTRAN I. Modern code looks nothing like the early machine-level descriptions. I also agree that languages are (and will increasingly become) precise specifications of what we want with the details left up to the compiler.