By the end of 2022, the IT industry has embraced artificial intelligence (AI) through applications that closely mimic human behavior in the IT sector.
In other words, AI is today capable of generating software code using intelligent algorithms, and IT organizations are rapidly adopting such software to empower their engineers to be more efficient.
While there are rumors and fears that AI-powered tools will kill software jobs, the reality is that these tools only arm engineers with better code.
A typical example is ChatGPT, which has skyrocketed to become the most popular AI content tool in the recent past. From homework to Java code, ChatGPT combines the power of open source and collaborative content with chatbot functionality to generate content pieces in near real time.
While tools like these can successfully generate entry-level content, their authenticity and usefulness in the real world is questionable. There are a lot of loose ends, such as recent vs. historical content and the ownership of the content being matched.
In short, ChatGPT, at its best, acts as a starting point for writers in the rather lengthy process of creating content. Said writer remains the author and no software can replace it.
Copilot is another app that harnesses the power of AI to generate software code. It was the massive growth of Copilot that set off alarm bells among the software development community and created a hysteria that jobs were disappearing. We need deep analysis to uncover the fact that software jobs are safer than ever.
To understand Copilot’s role in the software development cycle, we spoke with senior engineer and technology analyst Neel Neeraj. He explained: “The most popular method of creating code in organizations is the pairing method, where two engineers work on developing a piece of code. While one engineer writes the code, the other looks for bugs and vice versa. This buddy system ensures good quality code. Copilot stands in for one of these guys and flags coding errors in real time so the engineer can develop good quality code faster.”
Explaining how Copilot’s back-end works, he said: “Copilot has access to a virtual database of code previously written by engineers from around the world, which is available on open source platforms. When Copilot receives a query, it looks for patterns to analyze large code repositories and identifies one that meets your needs. But remember, Copilot has no way of understanding exactly where and how you’re going to use this code. That is still the job of an engineer.”
It’s called Copilot for a reason. The pilot is still a software engineer, and that job isn’t going anywhere.
Software human resources expert Uma Maheshwari believes that engineers of the future will be involved in more business-critical activities. “If engineers are logically sound, they will be able to take advantage of AI tools to learn and train to grow and create innovative code for disruptive solutions. The fact is that AI is still in a very nascent stage and it will be decades before it can even come close to mimicking human behavior.”
Rest assured, software jobs aren’t going anywhere. A smart engineer will look to leverage AI tools to get rid of menial coding tasks and focus on more critical software development activities.