Devils Advocate: ChatGPT Edition

I wanted to circle back and critique my own thoughts a bit on ChatGPT. My prior posts did their fair share of playing down ChatGPT. And if I were to read my own blog without being the person who wrote it, I might think that the author is SERIOUSLY underestimating the impact AI will have on programming.

And I want to correct that... a little bit. I won't take back my stance that AI code generators aren't going to replace Software Developers en masse any time soon or that "Citizen Developers" aren't going to somehow make skilled devs obsolete.

But, that isn't the only way these tools can impact this area. These services will decrease the demand for developers. By how much? That is really hard to estimate. Especially because it will also INCREASE the demand for software in general which should have some degree of a transitive effect on the demand for software developers. Before I dive into that though, I will say that it will change what it means to be a software developer.

Going forward there will be 3 camps (broadly speaking) of developers:

1. Those who act almost purely in assistive capacity to AI tools
2. Those who augment their skills with the help of AI
3. Purists who rely almost purely on their own skills

From top to bottom is also from most to least in terms of projected output. Those who rely on automated tooling will be able to produce results faster, and will thus produce more stuff. But, it will also become the inverse in terms of quality with the purists generally being able to provide better quality as the scale and complexity goes up.

While most devs are currently in the 3rd category, as AI shakes up demand, they will filter down based on skill level or exit the industry. The most skilled will likely have no issue remaining relevant and finding work as a purist. Most current developers will likely learn how to integrate these tools into their daily jobs putting them in that second category. And many new developers will opt for the first path as the barrier to the other two will seem quite high. This is also where the "Citizen Developers" will slot in.

It is that first category which also explains why software demand in general will increase. Lowering the barrier for entry into coding means that more people will have access. As more people get access we will see more people solving or attempting to solve problems with code. Which should in turn lead to a renaissance of sorts. And as people create increasingly more solutions with the help of AI we will find more weaknesses or simply more places for devs at different levels to compete. 

At the end of the day, an AI can only give the right answer if you give it the right question/prompt. The more you understand the domains involved in a problem, the more able to you are to ask the right questions. 

And in software development, understanding the code is one of the "domains" involved in any software problem. It also happens to be the one domain where humans are more likely (at present) to be the source of domain expansion (innovation in code itself).

So, don't take my prior posts to mean that I don't believe AI is a big deal. It will change everything. It already is. But, in this instance, that change is not as all encompassing as many fear/think. At least, not in my opinion.