Will AI Take Developers’ Jobs?
As many of those in this generation know, the popularity of AI has recently begun to boom. Many companies within the tech industry are now taking advantage of this technology and integrating it into their software, using AI to complete tasks as a human typically would. AI is one of humanity’s most outstanding achievements, continuously evolving with time. However, the issue is not about how well AI performs now but how it will evolve and could potentially surpass humans. How does a human compare to AI regarding the ability to carry out a job when asked to do so? What are the pros of AI? What are the cons? With such possibilities, this poses the question, will AI take over developers’ jobs?
1. What is AI?
AI, standing for artificial intelligence, is broadly defined as technology replicating human behaviors and abilities conventionally seen as ‘intelligent. It all started when a young man in the 1950s named Alan Turing began to question if machines could think independently. Within the next couple of decades, Artificial Intelligence progressed exponentially, with computers being able to store more information and being faster, cheaper, and more accessible than ever. Fast forward to now, some cars are almost entirely self-driving, websites that can write an entire essay within seconds about a prompt entered by a user, and even security systems that require virtually no assistance from humans at all. AI can be found practically everywhere in a society where everyone depends on technology.
2. How is AI assisting programmers?
AI can help programmers in many ways. An excellent example of this is automated code generation. AI can generate code snippets or complete programs based on high-level descriptions or specifications. This can speed things up and reduce the amount of manual coding required. Furthermore, researchers have explored techniques like deep learning and natural language processing to generate code from natural language descriptions. AI-powered tools can also provide real-time code suggestions and auto-completion based on context, syntax, and common coding patterns. These tools can help programmers write code more efficiently and reduce errors. Additionally, AI can provide code suggestions and auto-completion to detect any bugs. AI makes the best use of techniques that can look over code early on and look at any potential bugs or weaknesses.
This can lead to more reliable and secure software, and techniques like symbolic execution and program synthesis are used to help programmers. In addition, programmers use AI to improve their code quality and efficiency. Plenty of AI-based tools are out in the world that benefit programmers, such as some that can automatically refactor code to enhance readability, maintainability, and performance. These tools analyze code patterns, identify potential optimizations, and suggest changes to create better code. AI tools change how we test software tasks, and they can generate test cases, analyze test coverage, and detect potential errors. Machine learning algorithms can also be used as a learning opportunity. It teaches how to improve the code and identify and improve our outlook on issues.
3. Is AI preferred?
We must first compare AI and humans to understand why AI may be preferred. AI systems can not only take on more information and perform tasks much faster than humans, but their mistakes don’t outweigh the cons of utilizing them. They can analyze vast amounts of data quickly and make decisions or provide responses in real time, so building a timeline with them in mind is more reasonable as you get an easier time planning the expected output. AI systems can perform repetitive tasks accurately and consistently without being influenced by emotions, fatigue, or distractions. This can be particularly useful in areas where precision and consistency are critical, such as data analysis or quality control. Humans have certain limits that their bodies can handle, whereas AI does not have to worry about such things.
4. Cons of AI work
While there are benefits to using AI, there is still the negative side of it. AI allows for automated jobs. Before, automated work mainly affected factory jobs, but with advancements in AI, other types of jobs, such as customer service, sales, and different kinds of office work, are at a higher risk of being automated. Through experience, a human’s skills will improve and be shown through their work. The same cannot be said for AI. An AI will perform a task, but the outcome will not change unless the command it is given is adjusted. AI is unable to replicate human traits such as creativity. AI cannot have an effect unless it is fed data and processed in a certain way. Human creativity is unpredictable and doesn’t need to be provided with specific instructions. Creativity opens us to new interpretations and solutions unachievable by AI.
5. How is the current generation at risk from AI?
The current generation is at risk as AI continues to improve. Many workplace experts question the various positions AI can potentially displace. AI has shown it is capable of many things, such as creating art and writing, and can be used as a courier. As time passes, what AI can do will expand, and more questions about what happens next will be raised. AI has become a focus for many companies as it has many benefits. An AI works without stopping and provides work at a faster rate. These traits lead to businesses investing in AI rather than human workers. AI is also capable of opening up new job opportunities. AI in the future is expected to make some jobs easier by performing repetitive tasks that will allow workers to focus on more productive tasks.
6. Interview with tech professionals
For further insights into the tech workers' opinions, two interviews have been held with two people working in the tech industry.
Interviewee #1 has been working as a contractor for Amazon for two years. Her educational background is a Bachelor of Computer Science.
Q1: Describe your position and what you do.
“I’m an associate in stock manager, and my responsibility is to procure top-selling products in the US and bring them to countries in APAC and MENA. I cover the end-to-end of ordering the products, starting in the US until it reaches their destinations. This includes troubleshooting issues at source and destination warehouses, ship mode ratios, and purchase order support”.
Q2: In which situation/task have you found AI useful in helping you perform?
“I haven’t used AI to perform my task. There’s currently a lot of manual intervention by each destination, and down to the minuscule detail of a product requires manual intervention”.
Q3: Do you think AI can replace your position? If not, why?
“Yes, because everything I do is based on mathematical calculations.
Which position in your company can be replaced with AI?
The software developers can be replaced”.
Q4: What is your thought on the mass lay off situation in tech companies? Do you think AI is the reason?
“I don’t think AI is the reason. When there’s high demand, there will be an increase in hiring, and once the demand dies down, then lay off makes sense especially for organizations in the company that are in the growing stage, profitability and being lean are their main concerns rather than resources.”
Interviewee #2 has been working for Meta for three years. He has a Bachelor degree in Computer Science and Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence, with 8+ years of experience working in the tech industry.
Q1: Describe your position and what you do.
“I’m a data scientist at Meta. My job is analyzing data and working with product development to identify counterfeits”.
Q2: In which situation/task have you found AI useful in helping you perform?
“I’m working in a team using our collected data to develop AI models recognizing counterfeits. AI is extremely useful because we can train AI to scan thousands or millions of daily posts. That job would have been impossible for humans. Using AI to perform those heavy lifting tasks helps us save time and cost of labor”.
Q3: Do you think AI can replace your position? If not, why? And which position in your company do you think can be replaced with AI?
“No, because my position cannot be automated. I need to put many factors into consideration before making a decision. AI cannot do such complex thinking. Positions that mainly require writing codes, like software developer, might be replaced with AI because AI can write better than a developer”.
Q4: What is your thought on the mass layoff situation in tech companies? Do you think AI is the reason?
“No. It’s solely due to the lower market demand. During Covid-19, tech companies experienced a high amount of users and revenue, so they over-hired employees to expand. Now people go back to their normal life; there is a decrease in social media usage, and therefore the market and their stocks went down. Consequently, they had to fire people to cut down the cost for the company”.
As we can see, AI is beneficial for repetitive and heavy-lifting tasks. But it doesn’t mean that AI can completely replace the role of humans. AI models developed by the second interviewee’s team at Meta helped them scan thousands and millions of pieces of content daily to recognize harmful links and posts. AI is used as a filter by setting threshold and level of confidence. First, AI is fed with images, information, and characteristics of genuine products vs. counterfeits. Then, AI is set with a threshold, for example, a 90–95% confidence level, meaning that if the AI is 90–95% percent sure that the post contains harm/counterfeit, it will automatically remove the post. However, if the confidence level is in the range of unsure or needs to be reviewed by humans, the post will be sent to the human reviewer to check and make the final decision.
The benefits of this method are that it helps reduce the amount of work for the reviewer. Instead of reviewing thousands of posts daily, their skill and time are used to decide on the post/product in the gray area, requiring complex critical thinking. With AI, jobs that used to be for 20 people have now been reduced to 3–4 people. This reduces management costs because AI can work tirelessly 24/7 without taking a vacation or sick leave. The price of having developers maintain the AI is also lower than the cost of employing and managing 20 people. That being said, as long as AI does not have human intelligence or capable of critical thinking, the role of humans cannot be replaced.
Takeaway
Given these points, let’s not ignore that AI reduces the tech job market, especially for entry-level developers like interviewee #1. She thinks AI can replace her position because it is “based on mathematical calculations,” AI is very advanced in solving mathematical problems. But no system is perfect, and AI can make dumb mistakes. AI intelligence is no match compared to humans in recognizing objects, cognitive thinking, or making complex decisions. As a result, the combination of AI and humans is required for a system to run successfully and effectively. Ultimately, the human factor is irreplaceable by AI. The primary advantage is that it will help developers generate more lines of code quickly and efficiently!
