Amidst the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, both Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, have expressed concerns that AI could replace up to 90% of programmers' jobs in the future, particularly those involving repetitive tasks. Vembu shared his perspective on social media, arguing that much of the code written by programmers is "boilerplate code"—highly repetitive and lacking in originality. He differentiates between "necessary complexity" and "accidental complexity" in programming. AI excels at handling accidental complexity, thus efficiently generating large amounts of code.
Vembu further points out that while AI excels at eliminating accidental complexity, human programmers remain indispensable when tackling core challenges. He suggests that AI can easily process patterns already discovered by humans, but discovering entirely new patterns still requires human ingenuity and creativity.
Furthermore, Vembu stepped down as Zoho's CEO in January this year to dedicate more time to research and development. Driven by the rapid evolution of AI, he aims to better address the challenges and opportunities within this field. He cited a focus on R&D and his personal rural development mission as priorities for his future endeavors.
Similarly, Sam Altman voiced a comparable opinion. In an interview, he suggested that the demand for software engineers might decrease as AI models advance. He predicts that each software engineer will be able to accomplish more in the short term, but in the long run, the overall number of software engineers might decline. Altman also mentioned that in many companies, "at least half" of the code is already AI-generated, and this proportion is steadily increasing.
AI is rapidly reshaping the software development landscape. While programmers won't entirely disappear in the short term, their roles, tasks, and numbers are likely to change significantly. The future of the industry remains a topic worthy of continued observation.
