Will ChatGPT Terminate Your Job?

[@slava_in3757]

I really like "Shortcut to the answer" idea. I'v been using GPT chat for the last week and just tried to compare getting simple answers for simple questions using GPT vs Google & StackOverflow. And the result is awesome in this regard. While googling stuff forces you to concentrate on putting words together in a right technical way and after that filtering out non-relative topics and answers, asking GPT feels like asking some very experienced person, who knows the problem you are facing like he had it before too.

[@Sergeeeek]

I thought about it like asking a question on stackoverflow and getting an instant response. Which is super useful. It also helps when you want to learn about new things that you may not know the terminology for. It can take your general question and give you a really good summary of a field for example and its terminology. For me that kind of stuff is the hardest to search for on google because I simply don't know what words to use.

[@tjex]

4:38 definitely appreciate the video. So valuable to have professionals being realistic, pragmatic and not dystopian when it comes to these kinds of topics

[@IamQuh]

I really agree that these tools will just be more and more relevant in the future. The ones who flourish will be the ones who accept them and make them a part of their toolkit.

[@Som-yc4ql]

Sure, for now it will be a part of ur toolkit, but give it a few years and this "part of your toolkit" will fully replace you

[@crackleware]

if you are good at software development, you probably learned how whole systems work, and for example, how compiler works and how to write a compiler for your special project. similarly, we must be able to understand and create new AI tools to be the most efficient and independent at our work.

[@hombacom]

@@Som-yc4ql People that have fear of AI and talk down other people are the worst

[@evo2542]

@@mythbuster6126 You don't get it. There will be no adapting at a point. So you will be the one to suffer.

[@aesap_]

It's gonna basically be the new google for finding code.

[@hglbrg]

ChatGPT is just a tool. It is a better google->stackoverflow->copypaste flow. There will still need to be a developer that can do more than press run until it works. It is impressive sure, but at the end of the day it is just a tool, not a developer. Now a lot of developers are slightly more, some less, than tools themselves and those guys do need to worry or spend that energy improving.

[@martinlutherkingjr.5582]

True, but less developers will be needed. So for some significant portion of the job market its coming for people’s jobs, just not everyone.

[@martinlutherkingjr.5582]

@BeBop It doesn’t need to do everything a developer does to replace millions of deveopers

[@opposite342]

@BeBop a good developer using this alongside what they are already comfortable with can now do the job of more people

[@rightcliquegod7653]

@@opposite342 Which would make a project that would have previously required say 10 people be possible for three, thus a lot of devs would be fired, a lot of devs woud then look for jobs and so only the cream of the crop would remain. Just like what the primeagen said, be a master!

[@kamalchan9756]

indeed but new devs won't have a chance

[@WilderPoo]

I didn't really like copilot, though this thing changes everything. It's like having an awesome pair programmer helping you along with difficult problems. The thing that makes this so much powerful than copilot for me is how ChatGPT tells me how it arrived at a solution.

[@jaumeberepublic]

It's not just for difficult problems, and actually, I'd say it's the opposite. Complex things are not for Copilot. Now, repetitive stuff, reusing things to make X or Y...woah! It is where Copilot helps tones. I also encourage you to use typed languages with Copilot. It will help you scaffold things so rapidly that will set your monitor on fire 🔥

[@SamRFi]

Software Engineers main skills I believe are this digital dexterity and ability to learn and apply new systems quickly. The demand for these skills might increase instead of decrease with the emergence of AI. The workflow may look different than it is now but our skills aren't limited to our workflow I believe, as developers.

[@es68951]

The number one focus above all else should be learning and adaptability. I like the way you phrase that as 'dexterity', it very much is like that.

[@SamRFi]

@@es68951 Indeed. I think we could be facing a transition in what our workflow looks like, and this may seem scary and uncertain. But at the end of the day I believe we will naturally just do what we do best: learn and adapt. This is what we signed up for I believe when deciding to invest ourselves into software engineering and I think that's also the main skill that distinguishes us. Of course, every sector needs to learn and adapt, but in our case it's pretty much a requirement for every project (at least to some extend), and the results rely on our ability to do this, for every project.

[@neilclay5835]

The Rust compiler error message system is on it's own going to teach ChatGPT how to build Dyson Spheres and between them they will explore the universe, wiping out JS wherever they go.

[@wlockuz4467]

I fully agree with you, AI is getting good but its far from literally taking away jobs. Making a script from instructions is different than taking abstract requirements from client and turning it into tangible software, with a whole lot of back and forth and change in requirements themselves in between. I would actually start to get worried when AIs starts to create things on their own.

[@baseballMMAgames]

I feel like you're missing the point. If we get to a point that all it takes is simple instructions into an AI interface, anyone can do that. Programming becomes something that's no longer a skilled job and it's essentially an entry level job at that point. Will that make a good program? Almost certainly not. Will some companies attempt to low ball salaries for what they see as a non skilled position? I guess time will tell. We need to embrace it but I can almost guarantee it won't be all positive.

[@ineedtogetbacktowork9182]

@@baseballMMAgames There will be a period where companies will try to rely heavily on these bots to create their products and realize their products can't be maintained after the bot builds it for them. Then they will revert back to hiring programmers, it will be more of a trend than an actual thing.

[@baseballMMAgames]

@@ineedtogetbacktowork9182 that's what I'm hoping for internet friend.

[@nVinter]

@@ineedtogetbacktowork9182 what this will end up being is another tool for programmers like google or copilot are today. This won't take jobs away for the same reason Copilot doesn't take jobs away, you still need someone that actually knows what they're doing to validate and work with what the AI gives them. Maybe a future version, but for now this isn't a replacement for a programmer just like AI generated imagery isn't a replacement for an artist.

[@sCWasP]

@@ineedtogetbacktowork9182 There'll obviously continue to be a need for human programmers. However if 1-2 human programmers along with an ai can do the same work as 10 programmers, then obviously companies won't bother keeping the excess programmers around

[@prathamsharma204]

I agree. Earlier i was kind of skeptical but now the more experience i gain and more i indulge in architecting things i feel pretty confident. My advise to anyone who's scared is same as prime said just try understanding what you do

[@numberOnePete]

I'm pretty excited about AI tech as I think it's largely going to make those that use it even more efficient. Being able to have an AI take care of boilerplate or even writing tests is going to free me up to focus on the challenging parts of building software. I'm not worried about AI taking my job, but more excited about how it can help me write better software faster.

[@SamRFi]

Honestly I feel like AI mostly helps with the coding parts that aren't that fun to begin with. The fun stuff is in the areas that require us to take responsibility in choosing between sometimes arbitrary solutions, it's where creativity comes into play in designing systems. AI can't take responsibility, so imo the most fun part will still be up to us, and we'll have more time then exploring creatively.

[@a097f7g]

You can view such things as tools only until they become better at what you do than yourself. Then they will be used to replace you. That's the main point everyone is worried about: They will not just stay in the "convenient tool" range but become more autonomous and take over 99% of what you are currently doing at some point.

[@wykydytron]

Maybe in next 20 years, it's just simple ai, as long as it cannot think abstractly, understand what finished app should be, what clients wants it will be just a tool. In fact it may course programmers to earn even more as it will improve workflow meaning company or freelancer will be able to do more jobs in same time window. People need to chill with that whole AI will take jobs etc. When AI will be good enough to take anyone's job then it will be pretty clear we as humans will no longer need jobs and welcome star trek society of people just chilling and machines working for us. For now it's very good replacement for google - stack overflow.

[@Oshernik123]

@@wykydytron When AI will be good enough to take anyone's job then it will be pretty clear we as humans will no longer need jobs and welcome star trek society of people just chilling and machines working for us. We live in Capitalism society so before(and if) we ever get to that point, there will be high unemployment rate and programmers will have to find another line of work. Also for whose money would people "chill out" while machines work for us? No government would ever implement that model.

[@BastianSteffens]

@@wykydytron it takes not 20 years it will take few months to 1-2 years. i would bet on that. and people don t earn more because the work will be less valued.

[@RetroFrequency]

@ghost mall I don't disagree and I can see how it can go in a multitude of ways, but I don't think it should be downplayed, and uniquely I see programmers think they are irreplaceable (the narrative before that was that artists will be the last to be replaced, but they are the first). Take as example the question Primeagen asked to the AI. It understood immediately, whereas I would have had to clarify what he meant because the order he put the requirements. The other thing is that an AI can produce the exact template of what you requested instantly, it won't take several hours/days/months. So a person who has a vision and the cash to pay for it might rather spend their time tweaking the AI to get it near perfect then hire whatever developers are left to fill in the rest. But honestly, the rate at which AI evolved in pictures and animation makes me think we're severely underestimating how this will actually play out. I think there will be legal/government interventions too that might slow the progress, for better or worse, but that will only be publicly, AI will continue to evolve in the dark if it has to, it's too powerful not to. The stock market being an obvious target.

[@RetroFrequency]

@ghost mall "you can have the same amount of developers and produce exponentially more work?" Yep, great point and it's the only alternative I can see to a sort of doomsday haha. It makes perfect sense but it does assume that there's infinite profitable work to be done and that we as programmers are the best tool to do that. When it comes to telling an AI what to do, chat GPT shows how natural the language can be. The barrier of entry to programming/realizing projects therefore drops significantly. I dunno, every industrial revolution is hit with this "what now?" and manages to recover, and I do think this is the next one. I really want to be optimistic about all this, so I appreciate your view.

[@ErmandDurro]

Great content as always 😀 Totally agree that our jobs as software engineers are not going to go away any time soon but definitely gonna get affected so there is no better time to get better at what we do. As you well said, get mastery of what we do 😀

[@darksinge]

So good to hear a perspective that's not all doom and gloom.

[@parlor3115]

Aka lie to ourselves

[@Muaahaa]

The future will be complicated and there will be winners and losers. Some things will fundamentally change because of this tech. There will be a period of uncertainty. Hopefully we will come out in a better place, but it could go either way.

[@hotscriptgg]

Mathematicians and physicists didn't disappear with the computers getting better and better. They just went from doing boring calculations to thinking about abstractions and doing amazing things. It's like with code completion and generator tools, they still need human input to produce something useful.

[@es68951]

Only the code monkeys and copy-pasters will disappear

[@cariyaputta]

The apparent example is happening right now at the World Cup, there are all kinds of technology employed there, but still a team of human judges is needed. It's easy for an AI to identify whether someone has played hand ball or not, but it's extremely hard for any AI to intuitively pick up his intention, and assess the nuances across the board.

[@doingtime20]

It's revolutionary, reminds me of the days when the smartphones and the iPhone came out, so much to explore and so much possibilities, but this time bigger. And the thing is it's so fast, it's hard to keep up, can't imagine what will we have in 5 years.

[@BryanHoward]

Try writing code by telling it what you want with some reasonably sized function. It’s especially good at python. You can tell it to swap out PySide for PyQT, tell it to optimize the code to run faster with numpy. Now convert it to use cuda or openCL. Embed assembly with ctypes or Numba. It's crazy stuff! What also works good is bootstrapping code with this. Start with python (It's a good python programmer). Than you can get it to convert to Node, C++, C#. Amazing for figuring out syntax and language specific things. I haven't dived much into GUI stuff with it yet. It'd be interesting how far you can get with writing custom widgets in qt, if you can just direct it that way.

[@giuseppematheus]

As a programmer, I don't see threat, I see a potential google search replacement, Instead of trying a bunch of stackoverflows and blogs, now I can just "hey ChatGPT align this shit pls" "here is your amazing css", 'hey chatGPT iterate this lua table without losing entries" "oh, here it is!", "hey ChatGPT resolve this java math problem without Big Decimal!" "ChatGPT: boom, thats impossible", absolutely coconut oilness!

[@blvnkos]

I've been learning web dev for some time now, objectively I'm not doing so bad, but looking at the direction in which AI is progressing, it creates a lot of insecurity and anxiety for me to be able to continue learning and my original intention - which is to make it my job. Does anyone else feel the same way, and do you think this will significantly jeopardize employment in entry level positions such as front end developer and similar positions?

[@daedalus5070]

I'm in a similar position. Think about this though... even if you could use CGPT to build an entire project for you. Do you think when you go for an interview they will ask how good you are at using an AI or what you know about data structures/algorithms 😉 Even if day to day engineers do actually start using this day to day. Any employer is only going to give you a job based on your credentials as a programmer, not ability to use a specific tool. I'm currently doing a course in Full Stack and the temptation is absolutely there to ask CGPT to do things for me but I A) Might not understand my own project B) Might have trouble fixing issues if there are any and perhaps most importantly C) I wont have learnt much (if anything). Obviously the gates are open on this type of thing now so who knows where it might go. But are software companies going to hire anyone who is good at writing prompts? No - they will hire people who can show they know what they are doing AND can make the best use of tools like this.

[@krsmanjovanovic8607]

Yo we artists are in kinda similar situation, but as the previous reply said, just continue to upgrade your skills in programing and you will be fine, AI is going to do most of the work unfortunatley but they still need good programers to review and tweek code into exactly the product company wants, artists have to adapt in a similar way, client makes something in AI but it is not exactly what they wanted so they can commision an artist to use that AI image for refference and make exact image or even better one than client could imagine, I know these AI models are terifying but they cant make the exact specific thing you want even tough AI learned consistency

[@blvnkos]

@@daedalus5070 A very detailed answer, and I can say that I understood what you wanted to say. Part of my thinking also related to whether companies will need a new workforce, or whether, relying on this "new" technology, they will burden existing developers with additional tasks, which, without the existence of AI, would, for example, be performed by a junior who does not have too much experience to independently create complex projects, but enough to carry out the tasks that are set before him. I absolutely agree with your thesis that companies will always hire someone who has knowledge of the very essence of programming, and as an additional benefit will be the ability to use additional tools that are available.

[@Drakkarius]

Ai is fking up my options, I have a bachellor in graphic design but wanted to learn front end development, my plan was to maybe switch to graphic design until I was good at programming now with all the news im like damn I will have to stick longer in my mortgage job, my motivation went down but I still think that getting into a developer job would be way better than what im doing at the moment. Positive note would be that now can be easier to do freelance doing simple websites…

[@blvnkos]

@@krsmanjovanovic8607 Of course, it seems intimidating from every possible point of view, especially for someone who has not yet officially become part of a profession, but is on the way of learning and mastering that knowledge. Given that I occasionally catch myself questioning my knowledge acquired so far, this only creates additional tension for me, it is a problem that certainly existed before AI, but it only emphasizes it, at least in my case. As I said in the previous answer, I have a certain amount of fear that existing workers will receive additional duties, which they will perform through AI, and that this will significantly reduce the need for new workforce. And what you stated that there will always be a need for someone who will have to refine what AI does, I agree with you there, at least in this period when it is not so sophisticated and 100% accurate.

[@DemetrioSahaquiel]

Thank you very much, Primeagen. I've been very terrified the last couple of days (still am bit). I really needed to hear your point of view and positivity. You got a new subscriber +1.

[@hughcaldwell1034]

If it helps ease that fear a bit, I've been fiddling with Chat GPT and it's nothing like as smart as the hype is suggesting. Sure, it can write a minimum distance function if you ask it to, but it has no way to go beyond its brief, if that makes sense. If the problem requires even one step of abstract or creative thinking, it fails pretty hard. Now, granted, I'm a mathematician and only minored in CS, but in my opinion this thing is a long, long way from replacing someone who actually knows their stuff and can apply that knowledge to novel problems.

[@tomaAlex2001]

I just think it's time to have a deeper talk as humanity about what the future of all of us is really. It's fun and games for now, but I think it will only grow exponentially from here.

[@hombacom]

I still waiting for self driving cars but obviously you can't leave the responsibility in the end to machines when they don't understand the world

[@huyoken7953]

The same thing happened to farmers with mechanical farming contraptions, a lot of farmers lost their jobs, only the most dedicated ones survived. It’s important to be in this field not for the money but because it’s your craft. You can make money doing anything, but if you find something your good at you’ll be happier and better off for it

[@petarkolev6928]

Bruh, your advises are more than a gem!!! Keep up with the awesome work you're doing with these videos 🍻

[@kanishcktewatia597]

that slap sound at the end always cracks me up lmao

[@za_wavbit]

I hate the phrase "t-shaped developer" because it's overused, but it's also good advice. Get generally familiar with a lot of areas (concepts, languages, architectures, paradigms) but specialize in one area. And also, biggest thing, ChatGPT/StackOverflow/Bard/whatever can't replace the human element. You as a person are better at dealing with your PM and UX team and QA people, because you don't have a hard 8k byte context limit when it comes to building workplace relationships.

[@DaviAreias]

you told me to use Vim and now I can't understand how anyone can compete without using it, so I trust you.

[@btm1]

as someone that has been following the "programming will be one of the last automated jobs" narrative for the past few years, all that I can say is that the cope is real. How can you be sure that future version won't replace many jobs?

[@nightshade427]

But how do you become a master of your craft if you can't get a entry level job because ai is now used for that? You have to start somewhere and you can't start at the top and when these become prominent you can't start at the bottom anymore. Is it gonna make it harder to get into this industry?

[@keirapendragon5486]

I think what people are ignoring in the short term isn't the AI directly taking or limiting your job opportunities on its own, but by empowering developers I see it having tremendous potential to eliminate jobs by virtue of eliminating the need to have As many developers. If you have a project that used to take 12 people to develop that can now be managed by 3, you're not going to keep paying all 12, best case scenario you'd take on substantially more projects to keep those 12 employed, but that would take those projects off the table for a few dozen Other developers in a cascading effect that capsizes the number of necessary developers relative to the number of available projects. The software industry was already reaching a tipping point of maturity that was leading to a decline in job growth in the field. Meanwhile it empowers people who couldn't get into the industry but who were interested in doing some smaller development projects for themselves to do so and potentially to scoop up projects no one else would have done, but for little or no pay. It's too tempting to want to defend AI as benign because it is so fascinating, but unless we make changes to society to help buffer the vulnerable from its impacts, a lot of people are likely to be displaced in all kinds of sectors - the answer isn't to reject AI, but to put pressure on our political and economic leaders to mature with the times and accept that the era of profit based on the exploitation of human labor which is coerced by the denial of the basic means of survival has to end, or there will be more blood on their hands in a single decade than on all the hands of all tyrants, despots and revolutionaries in history (pardon the melodrama, but seriously, a LOT of people will starve to death if we don't start switching over to a system that doesn't rely on human labor for the allowance of the means of survival... a switch which AI could actually help us with the details of sorting)

[@mike.hawk_]

Answer is, don’t work hourly, work by projects. Also think how quickly you can build that app idea you never have time for.

[@wesgould1]

Not a dev by trade but a big nerd that knows how to hack together code, bash scripts, automations, etc. This is GREAT for me. I got stuck on how to do something and couldn't figure out why my awk syntax wasn't working and the cryptic errors and googling didn't help. I signed up for chatGPT on a whim and asked it if it could fix my code and it did immediately. I see it as having a smart colleague that you can ask questions of. They aren't perfect but they can help fix it or give you ideas on how to fix your code when you need it. I don't think it's zero sum: AI or Dev. It's going to be a partnership (like prime mentioned) where it will make your dev life easier and faster.

[@akashdeepnandi]

This is the most matured answer. Become the best, you will fit in anywhere!

[@Apenschi]

This is killing 100.000s of Jobs worldwide right now! Dev-Jobs, Art-Jobs, Writing-Jobs... any type of creational jobs! I'm a developer and have been using Co-Pilot for 4 Month now. And ChatGPT is an additional tool that makes us developers even more efficient. Right now, I would say, that developers become about 30% more efficient when using this tools. In the near future this could reach 50%. I guess that's almost sure. And if developers are 50% more efficient, that means that they are now able to do 150% of work instead of 100%. And that means that very quickly 30% of the developer jobs will be gone. Because a company that needed 90 devs to get their projects done will now only need 60!! And the same is true for most other creational jobs! 😱

[@jongeduard]

I agree. I have already decided to start using it at work this week. It's scaringly good. But I have also hit it's limitations multiple times. Like google search engine, it's the best at finding the more popular stuff, but when you ask more specific questions, quality goes down. You're also getting impossible code solutions, like async methods in C# with ref or out parameters (while asking for the opposite). :P So yep, your own brains still matter a lot.

[@galileo_rs]

If your job security depends on the speed you can churn out basic code you are in the wrong job.

[@nothingisreal6345]

The main job of a software engineer is to learn some about the domain e.g. financial, organisation, management, ... to be capable of creating the "real" system requirements for a project and then create a system from it. As a matter of fact: most of the time those people that want a system to be created (and paying for it) are today completely incapable of creating reasonable requirements. Example: "in the form there is a way to select a customer of the customers stored in the system." "Naive" idea: a select list. But what if there are 100,000 customers? Ok: autocomplete. But how does a user find the right customer? Ok: modal popup with search form ... But what are the search criteria... How are the customers stored? In one system or in multiple? A DB or some XML files? Who can access which parts of the customer data? Once you are that point - nobody will ever replace you.

[@es68951]

Reminds me of all the failed attempts in the past where people said "New technology X will allow business people to just build the system on their own!" Only to fail when it hits the inevitable stumbling block of "business people don't even understand wtf it is that they want" 🤣

[@heXan]

I fucking love GPT. I already adapted it in my workflow so I can skip reading through many answers on SO. It's perfect for small code snippets and explaining them. Even if something isn't working properly or I have to use some heavy regex which takes me hours to combine together. As you said, embrace the new tools! I know that a tool like this will need many years to come to replace to big projects we all are working on right now :P

[@ThePrimeagen]

It's not like they're going away

[@ChillAutos]

Yeh same. I'm saving so much time and learning what caused the error. It's just another tool, and a really useful one. Those who turn their noses up at this and similar tech will get left behind. Copilot already completes annoying simple boilerplate for me all the time and now this is many cases is like better SO / docs. It still makes lots of mistakes but overall it's really powerful.

[@heXan]

@@ThePrimeagen Absolutely! Right now ChatGPT is only a language model and also trained on code. I mean you could ask all the classic questions about programming and it will answer as a good teacher but it's absolutely bad at picking up a request where you input a tiny little logical complex programming task. I tried to make a program in rust (haha with the compiler) and ChatGPT just fails like in every iteration. Then think about picking up and fulfilling expectations from customers in a custom app dev-environment and so on. If we get an heavily focused ChatBot for programing with an logical analysis of the user inputs in the near future then I will start to fear about programmers. Just my two cents.

[@caltissue141]

my prediction: much like SEO has led to web pages that are written more for Google's crawlers to read than for human eyes, soon "AI Optimization" will be prevalent in the documentation for major languages and frameworks, meaning actually reading the docs with your own eyes will be a much worse experience than simply asking a chat bot to find the right answer for you. Then again, we already have stack overflow so many would say this has already happened.

[@Qbabxtra]

I maintained super flow for a whole day with chatGPT, copilot and myself. I asked chatGPT for some code, was close-ish to what i wanted, started to tweak it, going bam bam bom off my own knowledge. Got really stuck for a sec on a problem I had no idea how to even begin to solve, wrote the functionName without even thinking about copilot, BAM it throws out a really good idea, not really working tho, but my brain then saw a solution and bing bong bing, problem solved. Asked chatGPT for some new code, it was kinda useful kinda trash, but I was on it again, and repeat! The speed and flow was amazing, havent had so much fun programming in a long time, and that says a bit cause I have a lot of fun, all the time!

[@type-100]

heard someone say, if you showed someone todays python in the 1960s they would have been amazed by the speed and simplicity of the language I feel this is gonna be same with chatgpt

[@Muaahaa]

I think we will need to adopt these tools to remain working in tech in the long terms. Not sure if this is going to make the work more or less enjoyable. I also think it will reduce the demand of software devs, so fewer jobs and lower average pay, the magnitude of which will probably increase over time to some limit greater than 0.

[@LifeWithRilla]

For the people who think that this will be the end of developers, I honestly feel like we're putting too much value on implementation of programming. The skillset of being able to read the code is just as important as ever so when the AI breaks something we're able to troubleshoot the code. If you think about it all this does is make programming possible to be done with simple English instead of actual coding languages. Majority of coding is all PLANNING... reading docs, understanding how to use the technologies, or how specific technologies can be used so we can then in turn as the AI to use these libraries or technologies to do certain things. Think of the AI sort of like a compiler from simple English to any language or framework possible. THAT IS ALL THIS IS. NOTHING ELSE... We are still required to have knowledge of all of these coding languages, libraries, frameworks, etc to be able to give the AI detailed information about how to design these systems with all of the technologies we want to use, to hit specific end points, to return certain data, to process inputs & outputs into certain formats, to create helper functions, to essentially do & create and process alllll of this information into an application that is viable for businesses and all of the business logic required to make successful businesses. The AI isn't going to do all of these things without being given specific instructions and if you think about it that requires just as much thought, planning, studying technologies, docs, etc to be able to give instructions in plain English. The AI isn't going to become sophisticated enough to be able to understand how to process information in that way with out being given detailed inputs by humans on how to design what we're looking for, for our specific needs. At the end of the day SOMEBODY has to be the professional with all of that knowledge to read and ensure that these things are working as intended and the AI makes plenty of mistakes. This in my honest opinion is simply a code compiler from English to whatever we need. Thats it.

[@shivanshsharma5085]

I very much agree with you. AI is basically compiling plain English to code. We will always need developers as there will always be moments where complex functionality and tweaks are requirements that AI cannot implement. Like Prim said, this is a tool and developers should master their craft and utilize this tool to become efficient.

[@adriano.santana]

It feels like it's gonna take less than a decade for it to become as amazing in delivering results with low specifications as dall-e2 or midjourney. If you say "i want this" and chatgpt gives amazing results and you can just make minor adjustments, A LOT of jobs in programming areas are going down.

[@dansanger5340]

I asked it to write a randomly buggy function in C, and it did it. I asked it to write a function to write Verilog to count the number of set bits in a 32 bit number, and it did it. I got it to rewrite it in RTL, and write a testbench. I then asked it to write a sarcastic version of the function, and it did it. I even asked it to write a version in the style of Shakespeare, and it did it.

[@jotatru]

We'll all end up being like SAP or Salesforce power users. We'll now our way around these new tools and how to comunicate with them and oversee them, and companies will depend on us to handle everything, but it will require far fewer of us to do the same job and we'll never know the inner workings of the systems we'll run, just how to operate them.

[@SchalkNeethling]

100% Agree, great advice. I am embracing these tools like a second brain aka Logseq but, keeping an eye on the ethical use of these tools.

[@kevingreetham5883]

I have learn html css, JavaScript. A little react and am currently learning node js and server side programming in general. It’s taken me years to get where I am, but today I feel dejected and that I’ve waste the last few years!! Tough to take, as an entry level programmer , is there any point in me continuing my journey!?

[@rallokkcaz]

Been using copilot for a couple months now! It's been great, but it's just a tool. I've used it to write awful code sometimes myself hahaha, we're not getting replaced.

[@Magic.Pixie.Dreamgirl]

It’s really telling that the conversation is “are programmers in danger UwU” and not “how can we use this to augment our capabilities”

[@raptoress6131]

Try messing around with these ML tools to figure out what they actually can and can't do. Sometimes the results can get bizarre. The part that worries me about ML is when programmers no longer understand how they work, and we start to adopt an intuitive approach to using these tools.

[@towatch]

i pressed the like button in the first minute of uploading this video. Edit: and i forgot to include that i jumped 3 times for being excited.

[@troymaxwell383]

I really like using chatgpt as a learning tool for a new language or solving a problem. Instead of looking for that 10 year old forum post that only 1 guy commented on. I can just ask like hey how do I do this. And then learn to implement that into my project

[@mattlutz1105]

As someone that is a new developer I really think that tools like ChatGPT and copilot can really help you reach that level of mastery that he is talking about, a lot faster.

[@PaperBenni]

I used copilot for a few hours and uninstalled it because I actually needed to get some work done. The amount of distracting bullshit it constantly spews is astonishing and I spent more time reading through it and figuring out why it's not what I need than if I just wrote things manually. It can be impressive, but 99% of the time it's way out of its depth and attempting things that it just doesn't have the context awareness to pull off. I actually find Tabnine to be a lot more useful for day to day usage, it appears as if it's a really good snippet collection and if it's wrong, it's not shifting all of your code around the entire screen for no reason.

[@cloudergnu]

Messing around with ChatGPT to write some Laravel code for problems I had already solved, the biggest thing I noticed was that the more accurately you describe the problem the better the solution it gave. This was remarkably close to how the more accurately I write my tests the better quality of software I as an individual can write. I honestly believe the future of coding will be to write extremely good tests. So as Prime said, keep honing that craft, in this case I'd say work on the art form that is writing tests.

[@mannycalavera121]

I want to see one of these programming AI's with a feedback loop and a github account so they can go through iterative code, commit, feedback, code, commit etc.. based on testing results.

[@jaroslavhuss7813]

Imho ChatGPT just replaces the need for googling anything. I was trying it for some code generation and it was really stupid. So yeah, basically this is better and faster then Google or Stack overflow.

[@nscarlos25]

I really like that someone is bringing attention to the fact that "you don't need to xyz" is really not good for those starting.

[@mgd8867]

I make use of the tools, and I use them very cautiously because while they are getting better and better you still can't trust them totally. What I find is the best way to use them beyond simple methods is to write the code yourself, then have the AI look for small things you may have overlooked. I am however hesitant to see them have big uptake because I guarantee what will happen is executives at companies will see this as a way to cut costs by laying off developers and then demanding more from those left behind. I don't actually ever want them to be used to produce full size codebases because reading code you haven't written is one of the hardest things about programming! Imagine if that becomes the major part of the work!? I think it would lower cycle time because we'd spend all the time figuring out how exactly the thing that had been written actually worked.

[@jamesm5192]

If you rely on ChatGPT, then you're relying on the highest level of abstraction ever... Anyone with engineering knowledge knows what that means for reliability and such

[@joshr96]

I'm more excited how these tools can help me work more efficiently as an engineer. Don't think we are close yet to fully removing the human from the programming. Think most of use will retire before that happens.

[@panterra5662]

Both OpenAI Chat and github copilot have been immensely helpful in my job as a software engineer. It's been an invaluable boost in productivity and I'm absolutely loving it. These tools are incredible, but still have quite a ways to go... right now many of the technical answers it provides are flat out incorrect - almost to a comical extent given how self confident it appears to be when spitting out complete nonsense.

[@kanyesouth9397]

The fact this question is being asked so frequently really is all that needs to be said. It does not need to replace all developers, just 20+%, to cause major issues for the tech market. We are already seeing this with a very senior dominated environment. Current senior devs are in a great position now to combine their advanced skillset and experience with AI to make bank on this new era of automation. I am in college and switched to electrical engineering from computer science. Tools like Chat GPT were a big factor in that decision, not that you can't necessarily still break in to a company now and become one of the seniors cashing in within 5 years or so. But I know that's not what I want to do. If you are in college or high school now wanting to pursue CS, evaluate the situation and decide if you want to continue, moving with AI (either developing AI or trying to be a senior ASAP), or choose a different path where automation isn't (as) prevalent currently.

[@sergsergesrgergseg]

its seriously scary how good this is getting.. i can ask it complex questions and it will give me a proper response within a minute...

[@CodeRedsGames]

I often hear people say something like "You need to get into and stay in some flow state". From my experience, I think though it sometimes is pretty great in terms of efficiency, aiming for being in a flow state for more time is not a super good goal. Flow states often come when your brain makes the assumption that you are very familiar with the topic at hand and kind of automates processes. Often, for me, this leads to not taking the time to step back for a moment and give my brain some time to rethink and maybe optimize my solution, leading to worse solutions and bugs.

[@nathanfranck5822]

I've been using copilot professionally. It's great for spamming the console with debug messages and seeing what the AI expects what methods exist in my own classes, definitely not doing my job yet but its fun to have a buddy

[@justinoleary911]

It’s a matter of time before this tool writes better code than any person can in record time. Your job becomes just knowing the concepts of what you’re asking. The thing can write assembly language quicker than anyone can write python

[@31redorange08]

Can someone ask ChatGPT how to use it without signing up?

[@1013fly]

Wait, how to program without looking at Stack Overflow?

[@DannyEck]

Browser extentions in 2026 be like "Okay : replace @thePrimeagen's plain-ol' mustache with a full fumanchu and insert beard flicks for emphasis after key takeaways"

[@anzar4142]

@ThePrimeagen, Which quote do you prefer "Jack of all trade master of none" or "Jack of all trade and master of one"

[@jeffGordon852]

From knowing how to google stuff to knowing how to ask GTP stuff. My job got easier but it won't disappear, at least for now. I believe AI will change programming job, not erase them, some title might become obsolete, but will create new title in the process.

[@RoyRope]

I find it a bit spooky as a new SE'er, but I think it is fore sure adapt or drown with new technologies. And I also learned some new stuff from the AI chat already, just earlier I had a chat about the functional and reactive paradigm, and asked how they compare and related. Opened my eyes that the functional reactive paradigm is not the combination of these, but the overlap of them. It even tried to draw a Venn diagram, on which it kinda freaked out tho and made some weird ascii shit lol.

[@anirbanc88]

absolutely agree with you, master your fucking craft!!!!!!! memorize, type, be creative! 4:10 you won my heart, i shout about those same things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ThePrimeagen]

!!!! Let's go

[@YeetYeetYe]

What this technology (and the ones like it) will do is force everyone to be a TRUE fullstack developer. There will be no frontend, backend, cloud, devops, ML / AI engineer, etc. You will be responsible for it all as a developer. Abstractions like these don't take away jobs, they just let us do more.

[@juansebastiancastilloojeda661]

El mayor problema de programar no es hacer el codigo, es pensar tu necesidad como resolverla y decidir el camino que vas a llevar para resolverla

[@LuccDev]

I was blow away at first, then tried to use to to really boost my productivity at work, and it didn't work. For specific topics, it's hard to tell apart what it knows and what it makes up, since it nevers says "I don't know", you have to spend some time figuring out if what it gave you is actually usable, or if it completely made up an API. It also fails at incredibly simple things that (e.g. I really had a hard time making it do a script that can open 4 equally sized tmux panes). Also, since it doesn't know the context of my program, so I spend a lot of time just describing my problems, which is so hard when what you need is specific. Maybe I didn't try hard enough, but for now I don't see any use outside using it for getting some ideas, some boilerplate code, or some quick doc (that it can make up, so not even that useful). Also the fact that it's a black box makes it hard to judge about the quality of the response, unlike stackoverflow that has comments and history of answers.

[@nUmBskulLL]

Where can I get this? I really want to piss about with it :) Maybe it can help me work on my learning too

[@jef777]

I am using copilot now also for about 2 month. It is very useful. It is great in Python, OK in powershell and from my experince so far not too helpful with c++ but it will for sure get there. I think it is more useful the better you know beforehand what your code needs to do exactly. For me, this is often not the case. I think it is a good idea to impove that skill when ai is getting so much better. Then one can profit even more from these tools to really reach the blazingly fast probelm solving capabilities.

[@xenialxerous2441]

Love your vibes, especially when you advocate towards being the best one can while mastering one's craft. ✨️ 🙏

[@ThePrimeagen]

ty ty :)

[@shiggydiggy6847]

Tried it with a bash scripting exercise where I had to read a JSON file according to user prompts. I didn't even give it the actual content of the JSON file, but it was able to guess right the item names from the exercise description. Had to do a minor edit to the jq prompts because it didn't expect .names to be under .members, but otherwise the solution worked out of the box. The solution also had clear commenting, but overall it felt a bit jury rigged. I feel like these AI tools will sort of elevate beginner programmers automatically to a level where everyone who has some understanding of the language syntax and can word their questions properly can now do something functional. But senior level programmers aren't affected as much since you still need to understand aspects such as optimization, security vulnerabilities and integration with other systems which are harder to word out for an AI prompt.

[@chriskappler3321]

I'm 6 months into my first CS job after college, is it over for me?

[@DrPizza92]

Good stuff. Been thinking about this a lot today.

[@TheChodex]

I've tried using ChatGPT as part of my workflow, and honestly it feels like I have some kind of slave haha :D It felt like I was some kind of master that just orders him around to do things for me, and I just kind of review it, tweak it slightly and give him next order :D

[@marcusrehn6915]

I think that the type of apps that will be easiest for AI is going to be the simplest of backend services. You'll just have to say "I want these fields in a database and some crud operations on them".

[@theodorealenas3171]

I'm currently to see if test driven development will rise. It seems like it would assist the AI

[@STaSHZILLA420]

When Man built machines to automate certain jobs during the Industrial Revolution, we had so much more time to pursue our passions. With this technology, we are now able to pursue our passions digitally while this a.i. generates the fundamental stuff for us. Our code and ideas will evolve which we will forward to the A.I. making it better and better.

[@liquidrider]

A part of me hopes you do a video between a generalist vs a specialist. I feel that actually would be pretty helpful. In some ways you said to be a master of your craft, but described a jack of all trades or is a jack of all trades also a specialist or is it a generalist 🤔A lot of good take-a-aways regardless. IMO your example was to specific. Because most low-code no-code builders can do it. Honestly a SCSS mixin, tailwind, bootstrap class could do it. Some real world examples like 1. Build a a product buyflow with a stripe integration 2. Create a Spotify UI 3. Build a website using UX best practices shows its limitations.... for now Still I love ChatGPT. For those wishing to learn to code or hone their craft this tool is a godsend.

[@meltygear5955]

Seconding this. I asked somewhat the same thing in a previous comment section, but after this video I have a feeling what his response will be.

[@vitiok78]

Short answer. Always learn and you'll be safe. These things will give us more possibilities. These new possibilities will demand new ways of handling them. Our "coding" will simply become more abstract, one level higher. There will always be a need in humans while humanity exists.

[@mrDjuroman]

Even somewhat outdated crafts reward mastery, such as blacksmithing, being a master in software can't be useless

[@mrDjuroman]

However, I don't fear the AI in this instance, but I do fear employers and middle managers once they learn about it and start making unreasonable demands

[@rodrigbosspires]

Gold nugget, your content is 🔥 mate!

[@petrpechkurov3095]

Thank you, Mr. ThePrimeagen!

[@barefeg]

How do you use copilot in neovim?

[@sloppydoggy9257]

I mean, if these things are a huge threat to programmers, then they would in theory be a huge threat to logic designers and to board/transistor layout designers right? What about pipeline designs or place and route? Like you have sort of implied, I think its going to be a very long time before these systems can make products without supervision. The fact that they restricted its data set by nothing after 2021 implies that simply keeping up with the training requires a lot of supervision. Something that would be even more terrifying & amazing than AI as we know it today would be the discovery that P = NP, mainly b/c the implications would come back and affect AI.... After all, designing & training a neural network IS at least an NP-Complete problem...

[@김화겸-y6e]

I am really happy to use ChatGPT learning many knowledges without hard research. And I'm using Copilot everytime i hit the Enter key. I becoming blazingly fast learner and programer

[@tomekg6629]

Actually many other jobs - for example the lawyers' jobs seem to be more in danger because of AI rather than programmers. Do you see panic among lawyers or doctors that they could be replaced by AI?

[@fredwright4423]

The video is just one big yes for humanity and non vim users lmao. Thank you, you are awesome!

[@quelchx]

I'm so glad I am in the position I am with my company because stuff like this is the reason why the company I personally work for hasn't hired extra developers. With stuff like Co-Pilot my productivity has increased enough were we don't need say two developers on one larger task. Like you say -- become great a what you do and tools like this will become your friend rather than a foe and can turn a great developer into an even better developer (IMO). But as a result I can see less positions and jobs being available compared to previous years with tools like CoPilot and this Chat AI on the horizion

[@0to1-nl]

But how im going to waste 4 days looking for a missing comma?

[@gilpalmafernandes]

Very sensible view on these new tools. "Become great at you do and learn about AI assisted tools. Do not fear them". Thank you very much.