Emad Mostaque is a thoughtful guy and clearly has had enough vision of the future to build a successful AI company, but his prediction seems badly off the mark in this case.
The idea is that low level or junior programmers will soon be out of a job because of AI. He is not alone in making such predictions.
But reports of the death of junior programming profession or outsourced coders from India, etc, are greatly exaggerated.
(1) younger and more junior programmers typically embrace AI tools and methodologies. It's the older and more senior programmers who are more set in their ways and probably more at risk of obsolescence. I will also mention Indian coders I know are also eager and enthusiastic to integrate AI into their workflow.
(2) AI is helpful as a tool but circa 2023 it is not a full replacement for a human. Not even close. I use AI tools a lot in my job. If AI truly could replace humans we would have been doing it by now. To think it will suddenly get human level coding intelligence in just two years seems extremely "optimistic."
(3) again, I have to point out that folks who own AI companies have a financial incentive to over hype the future progress of AI. It helps drive attention and capital to the industry and their company in particular.
(4) just because I am *highly* skeptical of a 2 year time frame does not mean I don't think AI will ever catch up. It took decades of AI research before AlphaGo defeated humans in the game of go. In the longest time frames, I think most human professions as we know them are doomed and humanity needs to figure out an equitable and humane economic model like UBI sooner rather than later.
