“Don’t study Computer Science, neither programming, ’cause everyone is now a programmer,” says the guy from Nvidia.

“Devin is the new AI Software Developer that will replace us all,” says the Human Software Engineer from Cognition who works to put an end to his own job.

And many others…

I just needed to write about it right now because there is a lot of panic going on with these subjects.

Before it was “Don’t study Java ’cause it’s a dead language, study this or that.”

And now we are facing this “Phantom Menace” (I hope you guys get the reference :D).

What I really think about it is that we’ll have plenty of work, at least for the next decade or more.

These automated AIs can be our tools or help us get started with things, but I really don’t believe that they will replace all Software Engineers, especially for two factors: cost and documentation.

Seeing Devin in action just lets me think about it; it relies on documentation to figure out how things work, but in the real world, if you have ever worked with software development, especially with legacy applications and financial systems with crazy integrations, you know that it is far from being the reality of it. Sometimes, you will need more people skills to get in touch with people who have already discovered those legacy systems, to be able to do what you need to do. And as far as I know, Devin cannot interview you, yet.

On the other hand, the cost of processing for these AIs will probably reach sky-high, and paying your salary will be much more cost-effective.

And even if you believe in the guy from Nvidia, let’s suppose that everyone is now a programmer, okay. So now, the companies will need to describe it so accurately to the AI developer what they want. And all the changes that they want in the next week. And the other changes. And so on and so forth…

How do you believe that will end this code? I can imagine a total mess of complexity and unnecessary things. Let’s put it in an image to illustrate better:

This is much of what I see for the future of AI engineers.

And if you want to discuss that, I’ll have a whole conversation with an awesome team of engineers from all around the world about that in the next “The Out of the Box Developer” live session on the SouJava Youtube channel next Monday, March 18, at 5 PM EST / 21:00 GMT. Join us, bring your questions, and let me know in the chat that you are joining the live after knowing it from this post.

If you want to be alerted when the live is going to start, subscribe to my mailing list below, and you will receive an email with the link directly to the live some minutes before it starts.

Take care and see you in the next post!

EDIT: You’be able to join us live directly from here

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