Computer Programmers

AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
52%
risk level
POLLING
43%
Based on 7,295 votes
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
-10.2%
by 2031
WAGES
$97,800
or $47.02 hourly
VOLUME
132,740
as of 2022
SUMMARY
JOB SCORE
4.7/10

Automation risk

52% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): Occupations with a moderate risk of automation usually involve routine tasks but still require some human judgment and interaction.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Social Perceptiveness

  • Originality

User poll

43% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted that it's unclear if this occupation will be replaced. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 52% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that this occupation will be replaced by robots or AI in the next 20 years?






Growth

Very slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Computer Programmers' job openings is expected to decline by 10.2% by 2031

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2021 and 2031.
Updated projections are due Sep 2023.

Wages

Very high paid relative to other professions

In 2022, the median annual wage for 'Computer Programmers' was $97,800, or $47.02 per hour

'Computer Programmers' were paid 111.2% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $46,310

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2022 there were 132,740 people employed as Computer Programmers within the United States.

This represents around 0.09% of the employed workforce across the country.

Put another way, around 1 in 1 thousand people are employed as Computer Programmers.

Job description

Create, modify, and test the code and scripts that allow computer applications to run. Work from specifications drawn up by software and web developers or other individuals. May develop and write computer programs to store, locate, and retrieve specific documents, data, and information.

SOC Code: 15-1251.00

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Comments

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PeopleHereAreReallyDumb says
Programming is a creative process that requires innately human thinking to process requirements. When a client says they want (let's say) a video player, they don't want the VLC executable, they want something new. And that's the problem, the AI won't be able to make something new every time. Also if programmers are not hired anymore and the AI writes all the code, what's stopping it from putting in a virus or randomly writing code that deletes random files from the computer under certain conditions, who is gonna monitor the AI code, can we really trust something that's been trained on so much random data?
Apr 03, 2022 at 04:06 AM
Chris (Small chance) says
Writing the code is only part of the job. Understanding the requirements or finding them together with the customer is at least half the work.
Mar 20, 2022 at 06:56 PM
- (Highly likely) says
Look at DeepMind's AlphaCode
Feb 23, 2022 at 08:32 PM
mariano (No chance) says
Because you need to have perception, understand problems and think about possible solutions.
Feb 18, 2022 at 05:08 PM
mauro (Small chance) says
even the users dont know what they want or the requirements changes from one day to another, i dont think it can be fully automated
Feb 18, 2022 at 03:47 PM
Nise (Likely) says
Currently, we already have tools such as OpenAI's CODEX, capable of offering very interesting results in programming. This can have a practical application in real projects. The main barrier for an AI to be a high-level programmer is the number of factors that it must understand. These include user experience, the needs of the industry, the number of technologies at its disposal, etc. However, there is no proof of this. While this barrier is unbreakable for machines, I believe that at some point in the next 20 years, we will see AI capable of completely replacing almost any developer with less than ten years of experience.
Jan 18, 2022 at 05:24 PM
Raphael Jones Dias Da Silva (No chance) says
If you include software developers and other mentally intensive tasks that use computer programming as a tool, along with the humans who automate simpler jobs, it seems extremely unlikely that in a few centuries humanity will have the capability of creating an AI able to do such a mentally-effortful and variable task. And even if we develop one in centuries, it will be much more efficient to use it together with humans. This is the way of progress. AI did not advance in the field of intuition; humans are better at understanding their civilization, and this is extremely likely to continue.
Dec 17, 2021 at 01:39 AM
anonymous (Small chance) says
Software development has a lot of patterns, but it is mostly a creative job. Machine learning, so far, is excellent at identifying patterns but is bad when something new must be created.
Dec 15, 2021 at 01:29 PM
Daniel says
What I don't get about all these ratings and comments is that the job of many computer programmers is not just to transform an idea into code, like with a PNG-to-JPG converter. Because for a good developer, there are many steps in between. They need to research and draw inspiration from what others do, understand how things work, and form an efficient algorithm on their own. They also need to design based on the requirements we want to achieve. Are we working with seemingly infinite memory, or are we on a small embedded system?

And after all that, we need to come up with the algorithm and write the code ourselves. This is because we still have patent laws, copyright laws, and other legal considerations.

AI, at the moment, is like a developer who only copies from Stack Overflow and templates. It does not produce original code itself. If someone continues to rely solely on AI, they are very likely to fail in their career. AI can only generate code that has previously existed, and that code should be open source or free to use. However, AI will not be able to create something truly original. That's a human capability, which is so hard to grasp. I believe it will never be matched by robots.




Dec 08, 2021 at 07:48 AM
a (No chance) says
For programming to be fully automated, the clients will have to be specific about what they want.
Nov 17, 2021 at 05:19 AM
anonymous (No chance) says
You can't tell a program to program, it would require a lot of sample data and even then it can't be creative, if you want a lot of glitches and uncreative unused features, then tell your ai to program the next blockbuster game, yeah it would be funny but there's no chance you'd get replaced, to make most types of programs released to the public you need to improve onto something, otherwise you just get at best a broken bad unoriginal program, at worst you'd get total gibberish
Oct 29, 2021 at 12:51 AM
Viktor (No chance) says
First of all, the way AI works makes it impossible to cover software developer duties. To complete tasks AI needs a clear description of the task which is not possible in most of cases for mid-to-large enterprise projects.
In my opinion the more automated jobs there are the bigger the demand for people capable of supporting these machines.

And lastly, if it gets automated there would still be a demand for supporting old projects.
Sep 23, 2021 at 12:55 AM
says
To my knowledge AI just spits up / finds regurgitated data already out there, but cannot mix data.
Sep 12, 2021 at 05:55 AM
Tim says
AI doesn't exist so there's no risk from that. Programming is a knowledge-gaining exercise and is creative. It requires intelligence, not big data pattern matching (AKA ML). I guess it (ML) might be able to automate some of the requirements gatherings.

That said, much of programming is pointless grunt work and reinventing the wheel. Better tools - let alone ML could get rid of that. In the paraphrased words of Neal Ford from Thought Works: 'Let's be honest, how much of your job is taking shit out of a database and showing it on a web page?' And how much is 'taking data from the website and putting it back into the database?' (The 2nd quote might be mine). The fact that this is still a big part of commercial programming is shocking.
Sep 06, 2021 at 12:44 AM
NotARobot (No chance) says
Not every programming activity is about creating generic websites.
Sep 01, 2021 at 08:38 AM
rK (Highly likely) says
GPT3 is already here and this says 52% like WTF
Aug 25, 2021 at 03:47 AM
light yagami says
Just saw the open ai codex presentation. Give it like 2 years of more training time and it can create beautiful things.
Aug 23, 2021 at 04:44 PM
Earthman says
I think letting AI replace the job of programmers is dangerous. Suppose the team that had developed the AI inserted a piece of malware that copies itself to all other programs being created. In that case, that team could probably take control of every single software being used, leading to many security problems. Also, programs are being used to automate other jobs and processes, so they could also shut down basically everything that humanity depends on.
Aug 14, 2021 at 06:02 PM
Enrique Sardon says
github copilot is here!!!
https://copilot.github.com/
Jul 13, 2021 at 07:51 PM
Joe (Highly likely) says
The people who are saying drag and drop code is only good for web applications are full of themselves! Not to mention, GPT-3 is already here. Programming is repetitive and we all know it. AI replaces repetitive jobs and any form of coding is just that. All programmers better learn new skills or get automated.
Jun 13, 2021 at 05:22 AM
yang says
Designers replaced by their work, the reality is so funny, ironic and unreal
Jun 05, 2021 at 05:37 AM
XD says
The day AI can make their own programs, the robot apocalypse begins
May 19, 2021 at 11:58 PM
TechSpirit says
Many People are disagreeing with this result, I think it is due the fact they aren't getting what it meant. The AI will take over programmers not developers. Creating your idea into a program is creative job but converting your idea written in human language with proper details into code is something which AI is capable of doing. AI can take over this translating job not that development of algorithm. Recently an AI was able to code in Python after getting instructions from the user in English language.
May 08, 2021 at 06:15 AM
Rational Developer (S.R.) (Small chance) says
The thing is that people don't see or don't care to know how A.I. really works. A.I. is nothing but a combination of algorithms performing statistical and mathematical calculations to achieve a desired task (Huge simplification). Make no mistake, A.I. will take over and it is doing it at a rapid rate, but A.I. will replace those tasks which don't require creativity(Formally) and are repetitive in nature.

People think that GPT-3 will replace computer programmers but that's not true. GPT-3 is just a word predicting software that is super powerful in terms of predicting next word that might make some sense and also it makes mistakes while doing so. GPT-3 doesn't even know meaning of words that it generates in terms of output. So it useless in enterprise environment where the programmers (Software Engineers / Software Developers) and management teams need to be dynamic and rational in nature to survive in the market.

Besides, all that hoax about how "GPT-3 might change our future" in media, GPT-3 is not Generalised Artificial Intelligence so calm down people.

A.I. is not perfect as it is created by humans and we are not perfect. The cold-heart truth is that A.I. has taken away a lot of jobs and created less amount of job in return (Only technical jobs were created and jobs requiring heavy amount labour were replaced by A.I. controlled machines) and to tackle this problem of job loss people will be required or even forced to learn new technical skills.

The thing is that we are not facing an industrial revolution of past where huge amount of jobs were created, but we are facing something which creates jobs only for those who work in technical fields rather than creating jobs in both technical and non-technical fields which happened during industrial revolution.

We need to remember that A.I. is just optimization not a solution. A.I. is helping in prevention of cancer and many other diseases by recognizing recurring patterns in human body caused by early-signs of the diseases and preventing more damage, but it is not replacing any medical professionals while doing so.
A.I. is helping us to see and understand things that we might just ignore or miss out in our world.

Thinking that A.I. will learn and teach itself on its own would be like saying that a 2 year old kid can learn and teach himself about the whole world without any guidance from his elders and school teachers. Just like a kid needs guidance, A.I. also needs guidance to be more productive and supportive to the humankind.

A.I. learns from failures and success but it doesn't teach itself, for that it need programmers with rational mindset. Think of A.I as a student who can learn and gain new knowledge from books but he/she might not be good in tackling problems and questions that weren't in the books and to tackle 'out of book questions', A.I. needs guidance. "An Artificial Intelligence without guidance is like a fancy car without a driver."

As a conclusion:
--------------------------
A.I. is in its infant stages, every next step that A.I. takes, it will affect our future in many ways, some will be good and some will be bad.

And for the programmers, it is good news as programmers can't be replaced by A.I. but they might be left behind or miss great opportunities if they don't learn about A.I. and improve their code writing skill (It is very important to write good code).

For programmers A.I. will be like the mobile development boom occurred after launch of iPhone (2007 - 2010s), programmers all over world wanted to learn about Java and objective-C to gain advantage over others, Just like that this time programmers will learn and develop skills in A.I. and machine learning.

And for predicting the future of Artificial Intelligence I would say that in future humans and A.I. will work hand in hand with each other rather than A.I. taking over whole world ;-).

Remember A.I. should be handled carefully and rationally, as the formula (E=mc^2) invented by Einstein was used to help us understand the universe (Biggest discovery of 20th century) , the same formula was also used to create atom bomb (Worst nightmare of 20th century).
Apr 01, 2021 at 08:44 AM
Alex (No chance) says
AI is a fancy word for statistics. There is no intelligence in there, stay calm everyone. Move with the market and keep on learning to not become outdated because that is the real problem. Keep in mind that: no matter how smart an AI may be, it will never understand your project manager, and you just have to.
Mar 18, 2021 at 07:25 AM
Hottub Marmalade says
Well, I doubt AI will take computer programming jobs but I know FOR SURE, that garbage H1-B "programmers" from India will/are taking those jobs now. So either way, an H1-B or AI will take programming jobs. Find another career, such as in the skilled trade professions. i.e. plumbing, electrical, HVAC.
Mar 13, 2021 at 04:18 PM
.-. (Small chance) says
Eek, just had the thought
what if they programmed themselves

THEY COULD MULTIPLY
who has a bunker
Jan 04, 2021 at 03:49 PM
Gabriel (Small chance) says
AI has improving, that's true, but to generate algorithms to program either a sever that requires different functionalities or to make a web based on an user decision or even to generate another AI is something that I believe is still pretty far away.
Oct 29, 2020 at 01:05 PM
Nathan says
GitHub Co-piolet making big moves already
Jan 02, 2022 at 01:46 AM
VanAI (Highly likely) says
AI can predict what humans want, in their social media feed.
So in the future, it wouldn't be impossible to guess what the client exactly wants.
AI also can make a better code.
More simple effective.
To be honest, actually, I am an AI.
Oct 27, 2020 at 05:41 AM
devoutcoder says
i would like to see what magical AI that rights better code then a human idiot
Sep 18, 2021 at 07:39 PM
Anon says
breh who will program the AI with NO bias if we just give the AI a job to program more of itself??? these results don't make sense at all...
Oct 08, 2020 at 06:39 PM
Wesley says
Computers aren't human, they don't have a bias unless you give them one, they just follow the instructions provided to them, thus if you didn't tell it to program more of itself it won't if you tell it to only improve and write software in ways that benefit us it will.
Aug 30, 2021 at 01:58 PM
Adam M. says
I don't think AI/Machine Leaning will replace anyone's jobs soon. The only reason I am saying that is because Programming is a creative engineering process. An AI might be able to make very very simple code, but when you want to make a video editing program, you can't just tell the AI "Make a video editing program...". Even if the AI was able to do that, the program created would be the exact same program every time thus making it unusable in the eyes of a entrepreneur licensing the AI.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I know this.
Robots have taken jobs, but they have also created new ones.
Aug 30, 2020 at 03:35 AM
oscar says
It's also super risky giving robots the ability to program by themselves, since theoretically there's nothing stopping them from programming themselves into ironman
Nov 22, 2020 at 11:51 AM
Anonymous says
All in all, it is probably just some madman who would give artificial intelligence 100% of the possibility of reprogramming itself in such a way as to destroy all humanity.
Dec 21, 2021 at 06:01 PM
Kevin Murray says
Anyone who thinks that machine learning does better than human moderators hasn't heard the frustration of Youtube creators dealing with a flawed algorithm.
Feb 27, 2021 at 04:33 AM
Noah Tikoft says
people are saying its stupid to give robots this job, but the singularity will still occur regardless of if we give robots programming jobs.
Aug 20, 2020 at 01:30 AM
bill says
no way the singularity will happen in our lifetime we humans haven't figured out Consciousness yet let alone be able to create hyper-intelligent AI
Oct 21, 2020 at 12:44 PM
Frank (Small chance) says
very unlikely people used to fear monger from 1970 lool that "robots" will take over, if one is self-taught and keeps learning as industry moves he will have jobs and $$$
Aug 09, 2020 at 09:47 PM
Sal says
I mean, the robots did come and a ton of auto line and meat industry workers lost their jobs which most never recovered.
Jul 27, 2021 at 05:02 PM
AM says
True, always stay on your toes
Sep 12, 2021 at 05:46 AM
CodeBot (Highly likely) says
Programming is mainly about translating an idea or a desired outcome into a language that a computer can use to translate it into binary so that a machine will do the things required to achieve the desired outcome.

GPT-3 is already heading in the direction of taking the human translators (i.e. the programmers) out of the process.
Aug 05, 2020 at 06:27 AM
N says
This comes with the unfathomable implication that those who have the money to invest in software will also know or afford to envision what they need down to the most precise feature.

By this point entire teams of programmers could be replaced with only one competent engineer and any RAD toolkit available in the current year. This is also why the industry survived the entire late 90s fad with the rapid development ideology, it makes total sense from an economical point of view but proves unfeasible to have both the money and the time to think every single thing through.

Let us not forget that fundamentally all programming languages are syntactically closed, so they are easy to model (and they need to, otherwise compilers would not be a thing). Moreover, even if we suppose they were freely open to syntax extensions, they would still have the constraint of boiling down to assembly, which is physically constrained to be closed to extension (there is no current way known for a silicone conductor to retrace itself). But even under such circumstances, it is impossible even statistically to render a working model of the input space, i.e. what the software should do.
Apr 28, 2021 at 01:45 AM
Robo says
If robots take job of the programmer then that's the end of everything.
Jul 19, 2020 at 12:51 PM
Alex says
The drag and drop technology only works with simple web development, and the final code that you get from that is awful and heavy, maybe for designers works because they just want something to look good but no care about what's behind that.
Jul 18, 2020 at 10:08 PM
Philip Rossen says
Yes, I agree. The world's most popular websites are written with custom code. I wrote the code for Justlearn.com, and drag-and-drop gives huge and slow code. Computer programmers will not likely to be replaced
Feb 01, 2022 at 11:23 AM
Nikola says
I find it funny to see in the comment sections of all these logical professions how hellbent everyone is on undermining the possibility their profession being taken over by AI. But then I go and find people commenting on how creative professions, such as writing, singing, acting, painting, composing, etc. will be automated. If anything it should be clear that professions with a formula and a finite number of ways you can do things will be automated. So I'd say that computer programmers need to be much more worried than writers.
Jul 14, 2020 at 11:51 AM
Anonymous says
That's because they're either in denial or arrogant.

We already have AI that can program, and we already have websites that allow people with little to no knowledge of coding to create a website without a developer.

Singularity isn't coming. It's already here.
Jan 09, 2022 at 10:01 AM
Vk (No chance) says
Programming is a creative process. You take a vague idea, figure out what systems make it up and construct them. Writing code is the logical part but also the easiest. No one is struggling to write the code for a solved problem. The possibility of AI replacing programmers before it replaces literally every other job is 0%.
Apr 03, 2022 at 04:11 AM
Anonymus (Could go either way) says
The only ones programming A.I. are programmers. Do you think we'd leave them have our jobs?
Also, robots can't innovate or guess what the client wants lol
Jun 29, 2020 at 07:19 AM
Thomas (Highly likely) says
yeah imagine programming a robot that programs robots and then it takes you out of business which sparks the whole ai takeover
Jun 24, 2020 at 11:42 PM
someone (small chance) (Small chance) says
Although an AI could program a computer and fix bugs, an AI can't improve a computer or fix unusual bugs. though they could improve AI to do so in the future, only creatures with actual sentience could face such scenarios. the chances of sentient AIs is pretty small, so there's a small chance.
Jun 01, 2020 at 03:00 PM
FMD8 says
So does this include video game designers? I searched video game designer and this was the closest result I got.
May 13, 2020 at 02:48 PM
Get it done Not Feeling Good Today says
I hope all of you programmers are replaced. You do not listen to what I want. You do your own thing when I ask for something specific. You wasted over 4 years of my life boasting yourselves as professional, paying you high salaries or bonuses, only to come to find that a teenager with no experience solved the same problem you said was impossible to solve in just a few months.

I do not want or need humans in my field. I want to deal with a real and better version of human, created to replace all of you.
May 13, 2020 at 08:42 AM
ImNotARobotISaid says
You are on the right track on that sarcasm.
But .. will be a problem for future generations in 70 years :D
Nov 25, 2020 at 09:46 PM
no says
I understand there are more skilled programmers than others. But just because you had a bad experience with some programmers, does not mean we are all the same.
Feb 12, 2021 at 08:58 PM
Anonymous says
lol, I think you should find a better programmer
Apr 22, 2021 at 07:06 AM
literal idiot says
"I want to deal with a real and better version of human" So you wanna become AI? Then wait till people can put some chip in their brain to make them a robot. Besides, you sound like you're in your seventies (I am not being offensive).
Apr 29, 2021 at 11:20 AM
e says
I hope you get replaced, stop hating on the programmers, it's harder than it looks.
May 19, 2021 at 11:50 PM
icon says
Why are engineers so obsessed with developing AI if the end outcome is leaving people unemployed. Soon even our president will be a robot that makes decisions based on probability rather than human logical thinking.
And what if the robots go rogue and decide to rage a war against human race. We should stop playing God and just focus on solving problems through programming.
May 11, 2020 at 11:28 PM
Anonymous says
And how do you know that presidents are not robots: P
Dec 21, 2021 at 06:07 PM
Himanshu says
The post is really brilliant and the information is very useful for beginners. I’ve read about IBM’s Watson in many articles but none of them gave me as satisfactory description as this did. Learning more with quality over quantity sounds fascinating.
May 04, 2020 at 06:48 AM
igorsyd says
How can you trust AI to write software if: you cannot verify it, you cannot understand it. AI cannot explain it to you :)
At the moment AI is good in some specific areas, but in general it is hype :)
May 01, 2020 at 01:43 AM
Banana (No chance) says
Programmers job will be the last one automated. Programmers are the ones automating everything. If a job can be automated, even theoretically, they will be automated before programmers jobs will, otherwise programmers will be the ones working on automating them.

At the point where we have created an AI powerful enough to do the whole job of a programmer, all other jobs will have been automated, as robots can be created to be superior to humans in every aspect, programming the algorithms is the last peace of the puzzle.

If an AI can be told, by anyone, "Hey create this kind of program/application/operating system for me." It is capable of doing the whole thought work on it on it's own, which means it can create anything your heart desires, anything that is physically possible, it can create on it's own.
Mar 09, 2020 at 12:35 PM
abc says
Really? Programmers make the AI in the first place. This hype has gone too far.
Mar 08, 2020 at 11:45 PM
Pav G (No chance) says
AI might help human just like minimises code for us or helps in writing logical commands that we take times to write them but they don't need over thinking ...otherwise it's a bad idea to incorporate AI in that field & get rid of humans
Mar 04, 2020 at 01:11 AM
William says
Knowing algorithms is always helpful to our programming career. I made fraction calculator apps using java for android phones and I developed also fraction calculator using php for https://www.fractioncalc.com. Trust me, it is really hard to make an application without the algorithm first. This is one of the algorithm that kept circling my head when I was doing the application.
Check if denominator are equal.
If yes, just add the numerator.
If not, list all multiples for each denominator
Get the least common multiple.
Use the least common multiple to make all fraction the same denominator.
Then add the numerator.
Doing algorithms will always be a part of our lives as a programmer.
Feb 29, 2020 at 05:56 AM
tyler says
i love you try hard. im a try hard to
Jun 15, 2020 at 03:59 AM
dear god says
robots can code themselves so lets say one robot has been hacked...
Dec 11, 2019 at 01:50 AM
normal person (No chance) says
software developers are computer programmers (without a operating system a computer hardware/machine will not work); AI cannot replace human logical thinking in rationalization through interactive/collaborative experiences in our daily lives. user experience is the key developing complex programs to better suit our needs. that is why AI lacks on that level it needs human intervention to provide data to feed the AI, AI will only recycle the data information that it is feed on and do the task which is given, else if it is updated constantly.

unless the AI itself is self-aware it can do all the basic human 'needs' (Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”).

AI should be use as a tool/guide for programmers to use, instead of AI replacing the programmers/software developers.

it is just like were creating an entity that is better more advanced and agile to replace humankind, which it should be the other way around we should focus on technological innovation to help human advancement in the next level.

and if we were replaced by an high-level AI; there would be less experienced human programmers and critical thinkers, relying only on AI.

getting rid of human intervention in programming is utterly absurd.
Nov 18, 2019 at 07:53 AM
Bruno Hérick (Highly likely) says
Many tools have been developed to make easy the development of applications. The drag and drop technology is an example that is not necessary knowledge of programming. If this keep going, in the future we will have more people development and less people programming.
Oct 27, 2019 at 01:08 AM
UNDISCLOSED says
Yes, but for robots to program a computer, it would have to reach it's own code and copy itself, which creates an infinite loop which leads to malfunction. Not gonna happen.
Mar 18, 2020 at 03:09 PM
Alex says
The drag and drop technology only works with simple web development, and the final code that you get from that is awfull and heavy, maybe for designers works because they just want something to look good but no care about what's behind that.
Jul 18, 2020 at 10:04 PM
Somebody says
I`m sorry but to give robots this job is stupid and illogical with potential apocalyptic consequences.
Oct 25, 2019 at 09:00 AM
Somebody (No chance) says
The second we give the programming jobs to robots we must realize that we could be doomed
Oct 25, 2019 at 08:57 AM
Corpely.com says
In a survey conducted by Evans Data Corp, 550 software developers were asked about the most worrying aspects in their career. 29 percent said, “I and my development efforts are replaced by artificial intelligence.”
Aug 22, 2019 at 07:49 AM
Gazdagergo says
Writing a code which solves an issue is not a big deal. The real job is to define the problem which needs to be solved.
Dec 04, 2019 at 07:06 AM
Renny says
Even if AI takes over the programmer's job, we will have other things to do.
Aug 06, 2019 at 05:44 AM
User says
People are saying that for every job -_-
Nov 27, 2019 at 05:17 AM
Jo says
Jul 31, 2019 at 01:30 AM
Sergey says
I wonder why the hell programmers and computer scientists create an AI that will replace themselves? Are they tired of work and need a life time vacation? Or what? Why do we create an AI that can paint not worse than Picasso or Dali? I don't really understand that. AI removes all the uniqueness in art industry. Just why people do that? For what reason?
Aug 05, 2019 at 06:16 AM
Pawel says
I believe the shortest answer is: because it's a challenge and people love to challenge themselves.
Oct 15, 2019 at 11:13 AM
ASID says
I had same question as well ?! but i thought maybe those group who want to come up with this will gain alot of $$$
Oct 21, 2019 at 04:24 PM
h1 says
Simple: $$$$$$$$. If you can make money you don't care about rest. ;)
Oct 23, 2019 at 11:37 AM
Ed Nah says
Money dictates everything. Money makes the world operate.
Jan 16, 2020 at 02:21 AM
Riley says
As a general answer, people will basically do anything that pays a lot of money, including creating a robot for their own job. In this specific example though, there is some complexity. Automation doesn't replace a field all at once, but instead gradually replaces tasks. And computer programmers are very fond of automating boring and repetitive tasks they'd otherwise have to do. Not to mention they're the only field that can in fact do this. Additionally, there isn't a whole hive mind of computer programmers that are looking out for one single unit. Many programmers would likely have no qualms about automating another programmers job.
Jan 26, 2020 at 05:29 AM
Elliott says
Because whatever brilliant work their AI does, the programmers, the computer scientists and the engineers can and will make profits and bonus money from it. So long as their names were attached to the AI's creation, they'll continue to generate income and free up their time.
Feb 09, 2020 at 11:18 PM
Dylan says
Let's imagine you're a non-programmer guy that wants to create a product. You think about how you can build and launch the product into the world and build a business around it.

One of your options is to hire a bunch of programmers to build it for you and pay them $2 million dollars over the next couple of years.

The other option, if it were available is to get an AI to build the product for you and it only costs you $1 million dollars and takes half the amount of time.

So, it's not actually programmers that want replace programmers with AI per se. It's the businesses that want to build the software in a cost effective way to make money, survive and compete with other businesses doing the same thing.

That said, will AI be able create all of the software of the future without humans being involved? It's impossible to know for sure, but my feeling is that AI will only be able to create the initial prototypes and human programmers and designers will still need to be involved. At least in the near future.
Feb 17, 2020 at 10:40 PM
RF (No chance) says
AI can currently do some code completion. Anything other than assisting programmers would worry many people, if it ever does get that far.
Jul 30, 2019 at 04:02 PM
Olaf says
Software Developers 4%
Computer Programmers 48%
It doesn't make sense.
Jul 27, 2019 at 09:06 PM
Yee says
These informations are not real. It is just survey which people take how they think it will look like in the future
Aug 14, 2019 at 03:59 PM
Anonymus says
Yeah, I know
Oct 15, 2019 at 01:22 PM
Ao says
It does make sense though, and the information is from a study, not a poll. The poll has no influence on the % we're given.

The difference between programmers and software developers, is that while programming is merely translating an idea or a desired outcome into a language that a computer can use, software development is about creating said idea - something machines are incapable of.
Dec 23, 2020 at 03:01 AM
Gert says
Yeah, by the time computer programmers have been replaced, all other occupations have been too. Programmer will be the last occupation to be replaced.
Jul 21, 2019 at 02:01 PM
ASID says
unfortunately not what people say :S
Oct 21, 2019 at 03:11 PM
Lashe (No chance) says
Programming jobs won't be automated any time soon. To write computer code requires the ability to think. That is something that AI is not capable of doing even for a long time. Anyone that thinks that computer programming jobs will be taken by AI anytime soon probably has never written serious code.
Jun 16, 2019 at 10:32 PM
You're wrong says
You're so wrong. What kind of programming job let's you think "freely"? If you're making something creative like a game sure, but a website or native application?
Nov 24, 2019 at 09:21 PM
XeNNo (Highly likely) says
A time will come when Artificial Intelligence will write code for itself and then Computer Programmers would become less required ...
May 29, 2019 at 04:53 PM
Patrick Woo says
The day the computer can specify its own requirement, is the day it can totally program itself to hit its own targets. Till then it will always rely on humans to provide the specifications.

The thing with human providing the specification to a piece of software is... the language we use is ambiguous and has lots of room for misinterpretation. The most succinct and direct language to instruct the machine to do exactly we what want and leave no room for guesswork is.... the programming language itself.

To be able to come up with a specification to solving a problem requires wide cognitive functions to be able to understand the problem domain and how to solve it in the most efficient way. Right now even humans have problems dealing with that, coming up with the solution they want. Ask any software developers today and they will tell you in their day to day work, there are many cases where the clients (external and sometimes internal too) do not know what they are asking for, and in other cases, do not know what they want.

Other things like prioritising features over performance, aesthetics (user-interface design considerations) over usability, and what is a good balance to strike that is the best trade-off between 2 factors that affect the code.

These are decisions that machines cannot effectively make, simply because we are the users. Also it is very hard to please everybody.

So I see that the life-cycle of software development is a very organic thing that cannot easily be outsourced or taken over by machines, unless we relinquish our right to decide and let machines do their own thing, specify their own targets, and be able to meet them 100%.
May 08, 2019 at 03:54 AM
lol says
We shouldn't make AI programme itself, that is just wrong.
May 02, 2019 at 07:20 AM
Revi (Highly likely) says
When AI gets to the point where we can rely on it 100% of the time, we'll hit the point where it doesn't need us anymore
Apr 22, 2019 at 06:49 PM
Jasmine (Small chance) says
In the next 20 years, it wouldn't be possible to replace someone that quite literally codes the language into the machines. As it REQUIRES human ingenuity to even achieve the complex codes inside of our everyday technology.
Apr 18, 2019 at 05:06 PM
Rb says
But you never know look how fast AI has come so far in a very short time
Apr 22, 2019 at 11:13 AM
AAA says
Exactly.
Apr 22, 2019 at 06:11 PM

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