Is ChatGPT to programmers what the calculator was to mathematicians in 1966? Recall: a photo is circulating on the Internet showing a protest by math teachers nearly 60 years ago. However, they were not demanding pay raises, early retirement or other privileges for their professional group. No, they were fighting against the "allowing" of calculators into schools, which would allegedly lead to them being deprived of their jobs. Of course, this is reminiscent of the contemporary concerns of professionals in various industries, including programmers, over the boom in ChatGPT.
A fear completely unfounded? Not entirely. ChatGPT is pushing further boundaries. Among other things, it successfully passed an interview at Google for a Level 3 engineer position with a salary of $183,000. Candidates applying for the job not only have to answer technical questions correctly, but also face several behavioral puzzles that measure leadership competence. ChatGPT handled these two types of tasks admirably. It would be naïve to think that technology companies will not start using artificial intelligence (AI) tools en masse for software development, which will undoubtedly change the IT job market.
Artificial intelligence will write software itself, predicts Google CEO Sundar Pichai. And he's right! But does this mean that programmers will become redundant? By no means.They will be even more necessary, although not all of them.
Do you remember the series "The Suits"? AI will be an assistant for an employee - also for a programmer—like Donna is for Harvey. But from the beginning… ChatGPT itself spoke about the fact that programmers are not in danger of becoming unemployed, right after successfully completing the recruitment process at Google. As it stressed, for the time being, it cannot replace people because he is inferior to them in terms of creativity, problem-solving skills and critical thinking ability. It also admitted that it requires supervision and guidance from a human software engineer to operate effectively. Programmers may have breathed a sigh of relief after this statement, while many software business owners surely grieved, as they will not be able to drastically reduce labor costs in the foreseeable future by giving up their guests from writing sensational code.