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The Looming Shift: Will AI Soon Write All Our Code?
Table of Contents
A growing number of software engineers are anticipating a future where artificial intelligence handles the bulk of their coding tasks, a prospect that’s both exhilarating and unsettling.
- AI is already capable of writing code at a speed comparable to, and sometimes exceeding, that of human developers.
- The ease with which AI generates code, particularly in unfamiliar languages, challenges the traditional value placed on coding expertise.
- A sense of loss is emerging as the core act of coding—the “zone” of problem-solving and creation—may become automated.
- The role of the software engineer may evolve towards higher-level problem definition and AI instruction.
I’m coming to terms with the high probability that AI will write most of my code which I ship to prod, going forward. It already does it faster, and with similar results to if I’d typed it out. For languages/frameworks I’m less familiar with, it does a better job than me.
The Value of Hard-Earned Skill
It feels like something valuable is being taken away, and suddenly. It took a lot of effort to get good at coding and to learn how to write code that works, to read and understand complex code, and to debug and fix when code doesn’t work as it should. I still remember how daunting my first “real” programming class was at university (learning C), how lost I felt on my first job with a complex codebase, and how it took years of practice, learning from other devs, books, and blogs, to get better at the craft. Once you’re pretty good, you have something that’s valuable and easy to validate by writing code that works!
Some of my best memories of building software are about coding. Being “locked in” and balancing several ideas while typing them out, of being in the zone, then compiling the code, running it and seeing that “YES”, it worked as expected!
It’s been a love-hate relationship, to be fair, based on the amount of focus needed to write complex code. Then there’s all the conflicts that time estimates caused: time passes differently when you’re locked in and working on a hard problem.
A Shift in Focus?
Now, all that looks like it will be history.
I wonder if I’ll still get the same sense of satisfaction from the fact that writing complicated code is hard? Yes, AI is convenient, but there’s also a loss.
Or perhaps with AI agents, being “in the zone” will shift to thinking about higher-level problems, while instructing more complex code to be written?
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