The end of programmers’ work is approaching. Experts disagree

Last week, IBM’s CEO said he intended to halt hiring for positions that could be performed by artificial intelligence. In his opinion, nearly one third of positions not related to customer service, i.e. 7.8 thousand. workers will be replaceable in the next few years. Many Polish entrepreneurs and business owners, including those in the technology industry, speak in a similar tone.

Machines will replace workers. They will save time and salaries

– The end of the programming profession is coming. Artificial intelligence may displace many specialists from the labor market — said Cezary Kaźmierczak, president of the Association of Entrepreneurs and Employers, in an interview with Wprost.pl. The entrepreneur saw how AI created software for various entities. The machine did it almost perfectly and very quickly. Such a task would have to be performed by a team of very good specialists in a much longer time. Companies saved time and money.

– One of the most popular professions today may soon become one of the most forgotten. Code writing specialists will have to change industries. We shouldn’t be asking “if” but “when” Al will replace the programmers – added the expert.

In his opinion, specialists writing simple scripts will be the first to lose their jobs. Afterwards, they will have to look for the so-called “code clickers” who previously earned a lot of money for their skills and changed jobs every six months as soon as they received higher wages.

Those who adapt to working with artificial intelligence will win

– The winners on the market will not be the smartest programmers, but only those who will be able to adapt to the new situation and will see artificial intelligence as an opportunity, not a threat. – says President Kaźmierczak. The expert points out that there are already a lot of companies on the market that offer various types of plug-ins to make artificial intelligence work better and be even more efficient.

– A new market is emerging that offers AI support. There are people who not only offer new services, but also claim to be artificial intelligence specialists – he notes.

The IT industry is divided. Some see a threat, others talk about the future

The very question about the future of artificial intelligence in the labor market divides entrepreneurs and IT company owners. Many experts have no doubts about the enormous social, economic and employment-related changes that artificial intelligence will introduce. In their opinion, job offers in this profession will decrease.

One of the co-owners of a large IT company says directly that this solution will not only revolutionize the employment market, but will also solve the problem of lack of specialists that the industry has been struggling with for years. – Not yet, but in two or three years several hundred employees will lose their jobs at my company. For every three programmers, I will have to fire two and retrain the third to work with Al – claims.

Al will change almost every field. The labor market will change greatly

In turn, Cledar has been closely associated with the development of artificial intelligence since its founding. She cooperated with, among others: on large computational projects for the Large Hadron Collider, where for the first time on a larger scale she used artificial intelligence methods to search for new elementary particles and study the smallest structure of the proton. Its representatives expect many profound changes with the emergence of artificial intelligence.

– One of the areas that will undergo major changes will certainly be the labor market. AI helps in automation so efficiently and adequately that there may be a risk that people performing simpler, less complicated and repetitive work will either have to specialize more or lose their job. Nevertheless, the trend, especially in IT, should work in favor of the first assumption – says Tomasz Bogdał, solutions architect at Cledar, expert at SoDA.

New issues and new professions will arise

– There will certainly be new challenges, new issues that will require new types of employees and experts. Copilot already facilitates the work of many developers in tasks that were previously time-consuming. AI generates text in a second, and the author’s task is to check whether it has been written well, and in this saved time he can focus on solving more real problems – he adds.

In his opinion, the IT market will probably change in other respects as well. – New professions will be created and old ones will cease to function. There will be AI programmers specializing in natural language instead of programming languages, he argues. According to Tomasz Bogdał, it is also possible that Al will remain only a tool for a long time. – History already knows such revolutions and ultimately they were the driving force of development – claims.

Currently, the company uses artificial intelligence for everyday meetings. – We don’t have to devote our attention to taking notes, then reading and creating summaries, we can just focus on the merits. Thanks to AI, we were able to eliminate such time-consuming activities – he points out.

Not everyone sees a threat to the work of programmers. AI may be an opportunity for them

Maciej Cielecki, CEO of 10Clouds, has a different opinion. – At the current stage of development, but also in the next several months, we should not expect a scenario in which AI will do all the work for us or minimize or even marginalize the role of the programmer. – says.

– Quite the contrary, and tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, which are most often used in code development, drastically increase the efficiency of developers if we know how to use them – he says.

– GenAI tools will gradually improve, but at least for the next year (although it is difficult to talk about a specific time horizon here, because it is changing quickly), I do not see a threat to the work of programmers, but to people who do not want to learn it or adapt to the new way of working – adds Maciej Cielecki.

There is a solution. You have to adapt to the new reality

In his opinion, working in this industry has always been associated with continuous development of skills, updating knowledge and learning new tools, new libraries or language versions. – Anyone who did not do this saw their value on the market drop, fall out of circulation and cannot count on the most lucrative offers from employers. Learning GenAI tools is therefore a natural step in the development of competences – claims.

– In my opinion, from the perspective of a person who uses tools like GenAI, the job of a programmer is the safest. People who carry out simple tasks where the end result does not have to be of high quality, creativity or artistic value may be concerned. There, AI will quickly find its application. It will be useful when creating less complicated text content or graphics – he points out.

Experts agree on one thing. Artificial intelligence is certainly an achievement that is and will change our lives. Its further development will mean wider use of AI also in programming. First of all, to perform relatively simple tasks, i.e. creating simpler codes.

It will be like the industrial revolution. Some professions disappeared, others were created

It can be compared to translating texts. Today, such tasks can be performed by a machine, it does not have to be done by a human. And so it will be with creating codes. The problem with artificial intelligence is its formulaic nature. We don’t know if we will ever be able to get beyond it. Therefore, it seems that the challenges related to real creation are the domain of humans. So a creator programmer, someone who comes up with new concepts, will always be in demand.

According to economist Marek Zuber, in simpler tasks, artificial intelligence will replace humans relatively quickly, including programmers. – First of all, the use of artificial intelligence will support, not take away jobs. In the long run, and I really mean the long run, it may be competition for people – he adds.

– I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Finally, during the industrial revolution of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, theses were also put forward about the drama associated with the replacement of humans by machines and the taking of jobs. Some professions were disappearing, but others were emerging – he points out.