They are great for writing simple programs in Python or other languages that automatically share new entries from an RSS feed to my Mastodon account. However, this isn't the type of task you’d typically hire someone for. It simply saves those who need this tool the hassle of seeking out alternatives or trying to piece together a solution from the many non-functional examples scattered online.
Let’s say it can successfully generate a realistic CRUD app or website complete with standard features for managing data—Create, Read, Update, and Delete pages. That’s still relatively straightforward, as many generators already exist to fulfill this need. I’ve even created a few custom ones to speed up my projects. Now, let’s think about updating this app with something simple, like adding a new column to one of the tables in the database. How would you instruct the AI to do that? If you're not familiar with programming concepts, you might find it tough to express your needs clearly to the AI. It’s like asking it to build a new app and transfer the data seamlessly.
Even if an AI advances enough to handle the tasks mentioned effectively, the core of what we, as developers, do boils down to two main types of instructions:
1. Features: For example, "Page [insert name here] doesn’t look quite right; fix it, move something between pages, or add or remove an element."
2. Bugs: A customer runs into an error while using the application, and it might be as vague as that. The challenge lies in identifying the cause and fixing it. Realistically, we will need experienced programmers until we reach a point where AGI can analyze an existing codebase and truly understand it to manage feature requests. If it generates code with bugs, I struggle to see how it could resolve those issues.
Programmers will probably replace project managers, necessitating a skill set that includes a strong understanding of database management, back-end, front-end, and even CSS. This kind of versatility has been rare in my 30 years of developing websites and applications. As projects have become more complex, specialization has often taken precedence. This trend will raise the bar for job standards, especially for entry-level positions.
