Software developers may soon need to learn new skills as artificial intelligence (AI) takes over many programming tasks. At least that’s what Matt Garman thinks. The head of Amazon Web Services (AWS) reflected on the topic during an internal fireside chat in June, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by Business Insider. “If you fast forward 24 months or a certain point in time — I can’t predict exactly when that will be — it’s likely that most developers don’t program,” the industrial engineer explained, shortly after taking over as CEO. “Programming is somewhat like the language in which we communicate with computers.” However, this activity is not necessarily demanding of human ability in itself. Rather, it is rooted in innovation.
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Garman asked, “How do I create something that is interesting to my end users?” According to the report An example. Current technological developments mean that a programmer’s job will change. “Each of us” will have to be “more conscious of what our customers need and what the actual end product is that we are trying to create”, the manager stressed. Because this will increasingly be the core of human work in the future. Sitting down and actually writing code will become less important.
The debate about whether generative AI in particular is replacing jobs or making jobs more expensive has been gaining momentum for some time. AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini can automatically generate code, potentially helping companies achieve more with the same or even fewer number of engineers and IT specialists. Amazon’s cloud division AWS itself laid off hundreds of employees at the beginning of the year. Consultants from McKinsey, IDC and Bain & Company see the greatest potential of generative AI in the IT sector in the automated development of new application software. Critics counter: code agents can quickly generate source code, but cannot understand errors or the meaning of lines.
Is AI a job killer for programmers?
Garman did not want to issue a dire warning about the extinction of programmers, but ultimately wanted to offer advice, Business Insider summarizes the speech. His tone was optimistic. The Amazon veteran pointed out that AI opens up more creative possibilities for developers. AWS helps employees “educate themselves and learn new technologies” to increase their productivity using AI. Programming in 2025 is likely to be radically different than in 2020.
Post this on Reddit a lively discussion ensued. Apparently Garman wanted to express the need to “raise the level of abstraction in software development”, one user explained. Another made the businessman understand that “working as a programmer is not just about using syntax, but much more than that.” A sign of this is the “transition from machine code to a high-level language”, which only makes the work of a software developer with a wide range of skills and abilities even more important. Another user agrees with Turing Prize winner Yann LeCun, according to whom all repetitive, predictable tasks in the software world have already been automated without AI, for example through low/no-code solutions. Future tasks for programmers are associated with a certain novelty and unpredictability, “for which AI is not suitable in the near future”.
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