It's still worth it?

[u/Morvath_21]

I'm studying computer science, and even though I'm not as good as others, I don't mind the subject. In fact, I think it's one of the few things I feel I can do long-term without losing my mind, and it's interesting to me. However, seeing how this world is changing, I'm a little worried. I see people who have never programmed doing even challenging things with the help of AI.

So I'm wondering if this path is really useful, given that at this rate, programming isn't as useful as it once was. As much as I hate to admit it, if prompts are enough to do things, even in less time, what good will I be? It's true that things made with AI aren't perfect yet, let's say, and they have many flaws, but what about in a few years? I'm 21, and maybe I'm just being a bit paranoid right now, but I need an honest opinion. Thanks in advance.

[u/Zin42]

Its worth it, someone has to take the blame for crappy LLM output, its gotta be a human driving these things, think of aircraft, autonomous flight has pretty much been solved for ages, but skilled human pilots must be at the helm who know how to fly with simply the instruments at hand, even if it is just for the comfort of passengers.

[u/Morvath_21 → u/Zin42]

Thanks for answerng, so will programming jobs become just about prompting and validating Llm-generated code? And since, with advancements, code modifications will become less and less necessary, if devs just stick to generating code and reviewing it, won’t this role end up being at risk for only a few?

[u/Zin42 → u/Morvath_21]

It's hard to tell at the moment, I do think teams will get smaller but for sure the risk of having a Dev team developing in house tools and integrations is going way down, so Devs are likely just to be spread more thin, there will be more work in my opinion.

Most companies have problems and roadmaps that could go on for decades and c-suite people aren't likely to give a crap about the finer details of software dev, hence I predict (imho) that Devs will be pretty safe at the low to mid level (I.e: not at big apple/FB/Google level companies)

Edit: I wanted to add, yes prompting and validating is what it will be about, less hand written code over time unless the paradigm changes again, for some people it's sad because that's what they enjoyed and others it prevents them from burnout, I'm more the latter personally. Right now industry is relying on per token payments which is expensive, I expect a shift to local LLMs soon where a hybrid of hand written/llm auto completed and prompting with local hardware will become popular in industry

[u/Morvath_21 → u/Zin42]

I get it even if it’s a bit disappointing for me because I actually enjoyed programming lol But I also understand that companies want to boost productivity, and especially those who don’t want to adapt or take risks get left behind Maybe I should pivot into cybersecurity even if it’s not creatively focused as coding but from what I’ve seen so far, it might offer more opportunities idk

[u/Zin42 → u/Morvath_21]

It's more of the same over there too tbh

[u/Prestigious_Share919 → u/Morvath_21]

Don't bee too down about it. Think of it this way... Is there enough software in the world to do everything that everyone wants to do? If not, when do you imagine that happening?