Programmers are modern-day computers
Programming as we know it is in a process of dying out.
Most haven't come to terms with it yet.
I was inspired to write this after reading an article titled AI is Creating a Generation of Illiterate Programmers, which claimed AI is making developers worse at their craft.
Yes, some of your programming skills will deteriorate due to AI.
It doesn't matter.
Those are the very skills that are going to become a lot less relevant, for the precise reason that, now, the machine can do those things.
Before computers came along, there was an occupation called "computer".
People would literally spend their working days performing mathematical calculations for purposes of science and engineering.
Did the computer create a generation of "illiterate mathematicians"?
No, it only freed us to solve higher-level problems.
Is doing math calculations by hand a useless skill now? No.
Is it a lot less relevant? Absolutely.
Stack traces now feel unapproachable without AI. I don’t even read error messages anymore, I just copy and paste them.
The author of the post was unwilling to read the stack traces himself.
Even he, subconsciously, knows it doesn't pay off to waste cognitive energy on what a machine could do instead.
It's not laziness, but efficiency.
Lamenting about how we are becoming 10x dependent on AI is akin to saying how using an excavator is making us lose our precious knowledge of digging holes with shovels.
Why would you go and read the documentation if you can drop all of it into an LLM's context window and then ask your question?
I am not suggesting you should not read the documentation. You should read it, as it will allow you to ask the LLM better questions.
But as systems improve, your understanding of framework specifics will become significantly less important.
Tomorrow's job will look a lot less like coming up with clever algorithms and writing syntax.
It will look a lot more like:
- knowing what to build,
- leading and supervising the AI(s) doing the work,
- evaluating whether the end result works as intended.
Programmers are modern-day "computers".
Anyone who tells you otherwise is deluding themselves.