I don't understand why so many people subscribe to this "prediction". It seems unsubstantiated hyperbole to me.
There are a few reasons why I don't believe AI will replace programmers anytime soon:
1. The job of a developer/engineer entails so much more than writing code. Figuring out what the business wants, turning that into a good (system) design, etc. takes up more time than the actual coding itself.
Unless of course you take "programmer" literally, but I have not seen many companies that still hire programmers in the most narrow sense, that only focus on writing code.
2. Support and maintenance is a huge part of the job that I don't see AI doing. Theoretically you could let humans focus on that part, but I believe support and maintenence will become much more costly if the people doing they job have no familiarity with the code because they didn't write it.
3. As evidenced by many comments in the thread elsewhere on HN about the announcement of Claude Sonnet 3.7 AI still routinely makes mistakes that are super easy to spot and verify. As long as that remains the case, it's going to be detrimental to the success of you company if you give AI too much autonomy.
I know people will argue that AI is evolving so fast that the above will be solved soon. But I think all three aspects I mentioned are such fundamental roadblocks that they won't be solved soon.
What I do believe in is engineers becoming so much more productive as AI evolves.
There are a few reasons why I don't believe AI will replace programmers anytime soon:
1. The job of a developer/engineer entails so much more than writing code. Figuring out what the business wants, turning that into a good (system) design, etc. takes up more time than the actual coding itself. Unless of course you take "programmer" literally, but I have not seen many companies that still hire programmers in the most narrow sense, that only focus on writing code.
2. Support and maintenance is a huge part of the job that I don't see AI doing. Theoretically you could let humans focus on that part, but I believe support and maintenence will become much more costly if the people doing they job have no familiarity with the code because they didn't write it.
3. As evidenced by many comments in the thread elsewhere on HN about the announcement of Claude Sonnet 3.7 AI still routinely makes mistakes that are super easy to spot and verify. As long as that remains the case, it's going to be detrimental to the success of you company if you give AI too much autonomy.
I know people will argue that AI is evolving so fast that the above will be solved soon. But I think all three aspects I mentioned are such fundamental roadblocks that they won't be solved soon.
What I do believe in is engineers becoming so much more productive as AI evolves.