The next 10 years of Programmers
The next 10 years of Programmers?
/ the_next_10_years_of_programmers
I'm currently a 12th grader, pursuing my dream as a programmer. All my life, programmer had been my dream job (and a promising one, too), and I never thought this career might die one day.
But now that the threat of an AI became problematic, I am scared to death that the AI will impact the job market in a negative way in a few year, while I'm still in a university, studying what might become a dead course in the next few years.
I don't even know what answer I'm expecting at this point. I'm just so scared that I will never be able to get the job and be in the debt or something, disappoint my family, I don't know.
What's your opinion? What will happen to the programmers in the next 10 years?
I am a coding professional / business owner. My primary role is as a programmer, but I tell my development team that we are not coders, we are problem solvers. We just happen to solve a lot of problems with code. We still look for non code solutions often, or pre-built solutions that are cheaper than self development or that are open source rather than coding everything from scratch. The goal is never to write code. The goal is to solve problems effectively.
Ai does well when given very specific instructions. Many coders are this way. They have to be given a blueprint to be effective, and can't be the architect themselves of any great solutions. Those guys are in trouble. If you can create systems that work together, can problem solve, and can get results without having to be micromanaged, you'll have a future. You might use AI to solve some problems for you if appropriate, but not every problem should be approached with the same tool. Hope this helps. Happy to answer any questions if you have any.
I personally wouldn't worry about it. There should always be a need for programmers (at least for the foreseeable future). Yes, AI is becoming very common and fairly powerful, however it has limitations. I think that programming jobs will become more focused around AI; designing it, training it, etc. I would suggest doing some research on AI and how it works. Try out some machine learning libraries (or make something from scratch). Get some experience working with machine learning. With where things are going, experience with developing AI could be very beneficial.
I think that if your job is basically taking data out of a db and putting it on a webpage, then you've got a rough couple years ahead of you.
But if you've developed the skills to take on really challenging work, and you've learned to use AI to support you and make you more effective, you'll be in demand for a long time. The main thing is to recognize how things are changing. A year ago, most people had never heard of GPT or LLMs, but already they're writing HTML and CSS and JS for people. Yeah, it largely sucks -- I used it and rewrote half of what it gave me. But the fact that it could do it at all was pretty astonishing.
It's hard to give much advice without knowing where you're coming from or going to. But, if you're not already doing it, signing up for Chat GPT and getting in there and using it as part of your own work is important. Think of it as an interactive Stack Overflow. It can (usually) answer questions, and it will be very patient while you ask it the same question 4 different ways until you understand it.
The most important skill for a software developer is knowing how to learn -- and AI offers a really powerful tool for that. For example, I have a non-software related youtube channel where I have to explain technical things to a non-technical audience. Having GPT as a tool to answer questions and run ideas by is super powerful. I don't repeat it word for word by any means, but I use it to build my own knowledge a lot.
I think the first step to avoid having AI replace you is to learn how to use it to make you better at what you do. Then use that to allow you to grow into something bigger.