I chose this article since I remembe the ChatGPT hype from last year. This article talks about the fear in the software engineering community that their career have been added to the list of jobs that ChatGPT will replace. I find the article interesting in the way that they approach the incoming wave of AI tools in the coding space. It points out that this fear is nothing new as there have been many times in the past where new technologies threatened to end the role of the software engineer.
Many of the technologies are no longer popular and yet the software engineer is still here. In most cases these technologies aid engineers and make them more desirable to hire or they fail without the use of software engineers. For example, both FORTRAN and COBOL were created to go around the need of an engineer and only deal directly with scientists. However, while both languages are still around and greatly used, they did not make software engineers obscure. Either way the role of software engineer will still be in demand. I think this article is very useful to read especially with the current sentiment about the software engineering job market. Looking at new technologies as helpful tools rather than job destroyers will only benefit the modern software engineer.
Comment From Elaine Zhang: I agree that nowadays, people begin to panic around self-learned artificial intelligence and automation. It seems like many jobs, not only software developments, but potentiall accountants would disappear. Nevertheless, I found it intrigued where the article and you mentioned that we should see emerging and developing technologies as an oportunity, not as an enemy. If we use technology well, it helps to grow and make more innovations.
Steven Li (zl3241)'s Comment The case that FORTRAN, COBOL, and Waterfall not only did not replace the need for software engineers and computer programmers but also created even greater demand for coders demonstrated that ChatGPT will not generate a huge threat to the job of programmers. We as software engineers should employ chatGPT as a tool to better improve the quality of our work. However, I cannot help but to consider the difference between ChatGPT and FORTRAN/COBOL. ChatGPT is a LLM that is rapidly developing and evolving. Does the history lesson from FORTRAN and COBOL really applies to the case of ChatGPT?