DEVOPSdigest Features Article on AI Impact on Developers – Will Humans’ Ability to Code Atrophy?
DEVOPSdigest, an online publication, dedicated to providing insights and information about the DevOps industry, has published Kathleen McKnight and Vinay Bhola‘s article, “AI Impact on Developers – Will Humans’ Ability to Code Atrophy?.”
AI Impact on Developers – Will Humans’ Ability to Code Atrophy?
As researchers focused on the technology industry, we commonly examine the perceptions that different roles have about emerging technology. We’ve been monitoring perceptions of Artificial intelligence (AI) for over a decade and early on we hypothesized that developers might be skeptical and have a difficult time trusting AI. We were wrong, developers commonly look to their community for help with coding techniques, troubleshooting issues and sharing insights.
Over the years we’ve seen increased openness from developers towards AI because of its ability to serve some of the same purposes that they have turned to sources like Stack Overflow, GitHub, Reddit and other online forums and communities in the past.
Developers are enthusiastic about the opportunities that AI presents for automating tasks, generating code snippets, and reducing development time. AI can even improve code quality by providing suggestions for code improvements and ensuring adherence to coding standards and best practices.
While AI has already made many strides in what it is capable of in the field of development, AI models rely heavily on data for training and validation. Outputs may only be as helpful as the underlying data; if it hasn’t been trained on code examples for the task at hand or in the desired language, it won’t be much assistance. AI also can lack transparency or have the potential to amplify biases present in training data, making it difficult for developers to understand or rely upon the recommendations coming out of AI.
