AI Taking Jobs

As I write this, I will be entering my final year of studies to finalize a degree in Computer Science. Many people ask me: "Are you worried AI will take your job?", or even "Man, the market for programmers must suck right now". Despite what some may argue based on numbers, I do agree that the job market for programmers is bad. For those who believe that is entirely because of AI, they are mistaken. Programmers consistently go in and out of style, mainly because companies overhire, and then cut bad programmers. The reality is that if a company identified a talented programmer, they would rather keep them than slug along with a dozen medium tiered programmers. Why you might ask? This practice of hiring and dumping allows them to continue to find talented programmers.

So the question many keep telling me, is that I should not go to school to be a programmer. They claim there are no jobs and that AI will replace programmers. My retort to those people is simply that programmers are not going anywhere. At least... not the talented programmers anyway. Your garden variety self-taught programmers, or those who picked the skill up through some bootcamp will definately be left behind, and those who skimmed through their Computer Science degree with C's will likely struggle. For those who care for the craft of programming however, we are not going anywhere. The distinction here is those self-taught individuals or those who are skimming by and claiming to program, may know one or two languages really well. Even then, they might just know that language well enough to accomplish certain tasks. Those who will not get replaced are the ones who actually understand what happens at compile time, who know the evolution of a language, and maybe have even gone as far as to know the languages recommended styling. AI will not be able to replace them because those individuals are what will ultimately become your senior programmers. The people who make decisions and design systems.

Taking this a step further, true Computer Scientists will not be replaced be AI either. Computer Scientists do not just program, they love computing so much that they attempt to solve problems that computers currently cannot do very well. Take for instance the travelling salesman problem. All we have right now are heuristics to solve this challenge, because no one has found a way to find the best solution in an optimal time. Those are the types of problems your Computer Scientists are solving. Computer Scientists are the ones writing programming languages, maintaining them, and even researching into the area of computing. AI will not be able to replace that, though I am sure it will augment their ability to do work faster and more efficiently.

To this end, I encourage those wanting to study Computer Science to go do so. Do not do it because you are comfortable with mediocrity however. Do it because you strive to be the best at what you do, and because you truly love the art of programming and computing in general.