Prime Highlights
- GitHub CEO tells programmers that AI usage while coding is now a requirement.
- AI can write 90% of the code in 2–5 years, transforming the work of developers dramatically.
Key Fact
- Developers must become accustomed to working with AI tools like Copilot or face becoming outdated professionals.
- Jobs in the future will be prompt engineering, architecture, and monitoring-based.
Key Background
In a blunt and urgent appeal to the world developer community, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke threatened that not mastering artificial intelligence will be the demise of a coder’s professional life. When he spoke at a recent tech conference, Dohmke urged coders to recast their role in the tech community as AI rapidly remakes the software development universe.
Dohmke’s claim is also in line with a better appreciation for how coding is evolving. With offerings such as GitHub Copilot gaining prominence, its CEO penned that most coders are no longer typing out traditional code. Rather, they are now focused on creating and vetting code written by AIs, thus becoming “creative directors” rather than roll-up-their-sleeves coders. This shift, he continues, is a revolution in the engineering’s work—a revolution that necessitates AI literacy as a new competence.
As Dohmke asserts, within the next two to five years, AI will write close to 90% of all the code. Even more will be set aside for developers to perform high-level tasks such as system design, prompt engineering, quality control, and strategic planning. They will be made redundant in a more vibrant industry unless they are able to adjust to AI tools. The future of professional lives of coders is not to make the developers redundant—but to extend their impact through AI.
Above all, the GitHub CEO clarified that AI is not making software engineers redundant, but instead it’s a productivity multiplier. Those companies that embrace AI won’t have smaller engineering teams—they’ll have bigger, using AI to speed, wiser innovation. And yet, this new model may not be comfortable for all developers. But as Dohmke put it, software development has never not involved learning new tools, new levels of abstraction. Now AI is simply the next iteration. Programmers must be open to change—or risk being left behind.
