Accountants used to spend an enormous amount of time manually doing arithmetic and balancing spreadsheets. When the first computerized spreadsheets came out, it was a massive improvement in accountant efficiency and you would’ve expected there to be less accountants at the end of the revolution. Instead my understanding is that there are more accountants per capita today than there were 50 years ago.
Similarly, even without chatGPT, most individual programming tasks are easier today than they were 50 years ago. No punchcards is an amazing development. However, there are way more software engineers today then there were 50 years ago.
It’s no guarantee, but often an improvement in efficiency in a resource does not reduce the overall usage of that resource, because it increases demand for that resource. It’s hard to predict what effect a new technology like AI driven programming will have, but it’s a range of outcomes that includes increasing demand for adjacent skills as well as reducing demand.
I doubt a CS masters skills will forever be as highly remunerative as it has been, and the work will be different, but that is different than becoming a less valuable than an HVAC certification.
An AI/ML focus seems especially valuable as an understanding of how these new systems actually work, how to best use them, and what the pitfalls may be is likely going to be a hot skill set for some time.
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Accountants used to spend an enormous amount of time manually doing arithmetic and balancing spreadsheets. When the first computerized spreadsheets came out, it was a massive improvement in accountant efficiency and you would’ve expected there to be less accountants at the end of the revolution. Instead my understanding is that there are more accountants per capita today than there were 50 years ago.
Similarly, even without chatGPT, most individual programming tasks are easier today than they were 50 years ago. No punchcards is an amazing development. However, there are way more software engineers today then there were 50 years ago.
It’s no guarantee, but often an improvement in efficiency in a resource does not reduce the overall usage of that resource, because it increases demand for that resource. It’s hard to predict what effect a new technology like AI driven programming will have, but it’s a range of outcomes that includes increasing demand for adjacent skills as well as reducing demand.
I doubt a CS masters skills will forever be as highly remunerative as it has been, and the work will be different, but that is different than becoming a less valuable than an HVAC certification.
An AI/ML focus seems especially valuable as an understanding of how these new systems actually work, how to best use them, and what the pitfalls may be is likely going to be a hot skill set for some time.