ChatGPT can write code faster and seemingly better than many programmers

ChatGPT can write code faster and seemingly better than many programmers.

So will it replace software engineers anytime soon?

The answer is no. Here are 4 reasons why: 👇

1) Currently, when doing programming tasks, ChatGPT outputs code. And is everybody able to grok, manipulate, and use code? No—only software engineers are. ChatGPT's current coding-related outputs are useless to the general population and need to be handled by SWEs.

2) ChatGPT has been proven to sometimes give incorrect answers, including buggy code. No sound business will risk getting rid of their SWEs in favor of an AI that can provably write buggy software.

3) ChatGPT currently struggles to successfully debug buggy code, even in simple, self-contained code blocks. We can imagine that this will remain especially true in large, complex codebases. You can't get rid of SWEs if you need them to debug your AI's code.

4) To build complex applications with ChatGPT, you need to give it complex prompts that inherently require some technical knowledge as well as "prompt engineering" prowess. Right now, SWEs are the best-equipped people to write these prompts.

Instead of replacing software engineers, ChatGPT will serve as an amazing quality-of-life-improvement tool for them, helping them perform certain programming tasks much faster.

If you're a SWE, you don't need to worry about ChatGPT—for now.

#softwareengineering #machinelearning #artificialintelligence #chatgpt