AI and the future of software developers

Yesterday I sent an email to my newsletter.

Context: I have a bunch of ideas for future courses I have in mind on my courses page, but as a good “marketer” I won’t just start with the one I want. I want to create a course that people would find useful. The best way to figure this out is asking people. So I asked in an email.

Someone replied to me that none of my courses will matter because “AI will replace developers”.

If you’ve played around with AI in any capacity, you know you can do a lot with it:

• you can talk to an AI and get answers to pretty much any topic, more or less reliably
• you can get the AI process data, more or less accurately
• you can use it to generate images, more or less good
• you can use it to turn audio into text, or translate
• as a developer, you can get it to generate code to do something specific, more or less correct

…and so on.

A ton of stuff.

And it’s getting better all the time.

It’s kind of scary, I get it.

But if you’re a good/competent computer programmer, or if you want to become one, I think you shouldn’t be afraid of AI at all.

But if you don’t bring anything new or unique to the table, you are happy doing the minimum job you have to do and your employer could replace you with any random developer hired today and trained for 2 weeks, or outsourcing your job to a developing country, then you might as well be replaced by AI.

That’s something you can worry about.

One thing you can do is thinking about how are you going to be irreplaceable.

Maybe you could replace 10 people by becoming single “10x” developer using AI. Staying on top of it.

I think AI is going to serve me pretty well. I will use AI at my advantage for my business needs. I have no fear of AI replacing me, because I am the employer of the AI.

I’ll use it to do the job I already know how to do, but I can do 50x faster with AI, because I’ll know what to ask exactly.

I’ll know when the AI is wrong or is misleading me.

I’ll know how to tweak it.

I’ll know when it takes a questionable technical decision.

It’s like if you have a car, knowing all about the engine is much better than just handling it to the shop and say “fix it”. You’ll know when they’re trying to charge you for some work you don’t need to do, for example.

Same for anything.

If my dog has an issue, I’ll read everything about it. I won’t just offload that to the vet, staring into the void when he talks to me about medical issues. I’ll let the vet do its job, of course, but I want to know what they’re doing.

Same with anything related to programming and AI.

I’m not teaching people programming to become “code monkeys” that can be replaced anytime.

Actually, far from that.

I am known, and if I’m not I’d like to be known, as someone that is teaching things that are useful to create your own stuff.

Not topics only applicable when you’re working as an employee for a big company.

Far too many people are funneled by “influencers” into learning stuff they’ll never need in the real world because they’re only used at big corporations.

The same corporations that will definitely replace thousands of employees with AI, because their stakeholders don’t care about them, they only care about their money and return over investment.

But the stuff you’re learning with me are all things that are practical and have tons of uses.

Be it create a SaaS or run the website for a local charity in your free time when you’re retired. Maybe create an app that you can live off 1 year from now, or provide you side income.

Personally I’ll use the skills I have, and the one I’ll gain in the future, to use any AI-powered stuff available to me into creating products and services that will be useful to other people.

So as a one-man operation I’ll be able to work as an army of people.

Thanks to AI.

And I want to help people do that, too.

So, don’t be scared of AI.

AI won’t replace you, if you don’t let AI replace you.