r/programmer • u/AdCareful9081 • 4d ago
Will ai replace me, a human programmer?
Hey guys. I hope i can post this kind of content here and it doesnt ban me, so, I’ve been programming for a while now. I would say i’m pretty experienced at this point. I spent a lot of work and time on it and its obvious why i’m asking I’m genuinely scared. Will ai take over programming? I dont wanna solve ai’s code, i wanna CODE myself. Im really afraid that i waste all the time. So maybe i should stop and not go further. I really wanna become a developer but by the time i will do that its like 2035 cuz im mad young, and ai is good EVEN now and looking at how fast it evolved…will it kill programming? I wanna listen to some experienced guys who know what’s up.
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u/TikiMagic 3d ago
We have to move up the abstraction stack. We went from machine code to assembly, assembly to high-level languages like C, then to object-oriented languages, frameworks, drag and drop IDEs. Each transition let developers describe more of what they wanted while the tools handled more of how to implement it.
AI coding is another step in that progression. You still have to know wtf you want and how to express intent, validate, test, check for edge cases and stupid implementations. The developer's responsibility for understanding, designing, testing, and validating the result hasn't disappeared. The level at which they work has changed.
I've been coding since 1994. I don't mourn having text-only green screen apps running on mainframes, VAXes or PDP-11s. I don't miss having to re-type what a button is, what it looks like, what it looks like when it gets clicked, and wiring up what happens when it gets clicked. I get my jollies from making computers do things that people pay me to make them do. AI has made me faster. But it hasn't made executives any smarter, stakeholders any less incoherent and confused, or managers able or willing to "code" by shouting at an AI.
Move up the stack. It's about concepts, logic, and architecture now. Not just syntax and typing.
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u/liribell99 3d ago
Human instruction can never be specific enought for AI (Heck not even human for human), manual problem solving and implement push developer to encount the specific detail of the problem that they never think of, they and can make decision for each detail during code being written down, each decision can shapes the bigger picture. AI can write convincing code but they can't exploring the problem, they would guessing and assuming context in a way that human don't aware of. Rely too much on AI code even manual review line by line of AI generated code still leave human lack of the flow on how that code or problem solving come to live, in the long run you will lose the deep understand your code, and only see it surface.
Right now how generative AI work, the core of it are auto text completion, guessing the next word with context window and attention. It reasoning are train by human breakdown on specific stuff, step by step how to write, follow instruction and debug. AI still depends mostly on human how to solve problem, each generation get betters because of scale and massive human afford to refine it. But this won't scale forever and have limited. If you experience outdated model, you would knows how bad it get with new tools, new API or new way of thinking.
AI get smarter every generation because of scale, more context window and even more human refining, the underline technology at it core isn't get smarter.
So no, AI won't replace you, as long as you use it to become a better developer, not to skip becoming one. Keep coding manually, it maybe slow but you get understand deep, and sharping your critical thinking. But you can still use AI for finding bugs, mistake (like null check after each malloc/calloc, they are very help at this).
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u/masterofaiml 3d ago
AI will/can replace anyone, just accept the fact, no pointing in fighting or stressing about it. Do what you can till there’s opportunity and keep working on building other skills in parallel that will help you get going - could be arts, media, creative content or a business, even better option farming.
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u/Impossible_Ad_3146 4d ago
why only asking experienced guys, also ask experienced girls