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Windows Central
Windows Central
Technology
Kevin Okemwa

Sam Altman says AI will make coders 10x more productive, not replace them — Even Bill Gates claims the field is too complex

Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023.

As generative AI becomes more advanced, job security is becoming a major concern among most professionals. Multiple reports suggest that most jobs have a high affinity to be fully automated using AI, including 54% of banking jobs.

There's been a lot of speculation that coding will be the first profession on AI's chopping block. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang indicated that coding might already be dead in the water with the rapid prevalence of AI. Instead, he recommended exploring alternative career paths in biology, farming, education, or manufacturing.

Despite claiming that AI will gradually replace software engineers, creating a need to master the use of AI-powered tools, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman now says that he's less interested in replacing them, and is focused on making them 10x more productive (via vitrupo on X).

I think it's the degree of automation that matters. To get to 100, truly 100% automation, you can make a complex thing and never touch code. That's one thing, but I'm less interested in that question than when a coder becomes 10x productive. And I think that could happen this year, next year, or something like that.

OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman

Last year, Microsoft's Work Trend Index report suggested that most recruiters won't hire anyone without an AI aptitude, prompting "a 142x increase in LinkedIn members adding AI skills like Copilot and ChatGPT to their profiles."

Interestingly, most executives voiced concern about the lack of sufficient talent to fill the vacancies in their organizations.

Elsewhere, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates indicated that while AI will eventually replace humans for most things, coders, biologists, and energy experts will survive the AI revolution. He claimed that these fields are too complex to be fully automated by AI.

To that end, the future is seemingly unprecedented as we step into the AI era. I don't think AI will necessarily replace professionals at work, rather, it'll become a critical tool at the work place designed to automate redundant and repetitive tasks.

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