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With AI looming, is there still space for new coders?
(lemmy.world)
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The bottleneck is developers competent to code in each specific domain. We have nowhere near enough, even for the most popular subject - writing an eCommerce store.
Source: Let's all play a quick round of "think of every eCommerce site you don't hate." Okay, now let's all try to think of a second one. Anyone still trying for three?
The specific domain list is, I suspect, currently uncountable.
Twenty five years from now, I suspect we can get a ballpark approximate count of developer specializations by starting at the top of the popular WordPress plugins list, and stopping when we start hitting obvious duplicates.
After that, we can compare that count to the known number of tailored-to-purpose AIs available.
Subtract the two, and that's the remaining runway on "AI is taking all of our jobs". (If feeling generous, add a bit of leeway for each AI also needing some time to stop sucking.)
Source: I'm part of the AI problem/solution. It's fun times, but y'all excited folks are going to be disappointed for a long while, unless you're incredibly satisfied with what you already have.
Even when we reach true sentient AI (which may still be impossible), there will be an uphill road to teach it each domain we want it to work in.
Teaching humans is difficult. Teaching computers is difficult. Teaching a computer that thinks like a human might be much easier.
Perhaps it will teach itself at an incredible speed. Some humans do. But history suggests that getting each AI up to speed, in each domain we need it for, will still be...difficult.