Beyond the Code: Lessons Learned from the AI Shift in Tech
I was pondering what the next thing for software development might be after AI.
I remembered when I visited GITEX in Dubai in 2022. Just after that, I got a message about ChatGPT and found that people were exploring it so much and expecting so many changes in what they could do with just a chat window.
It’s not a new thing about chatbots, but this time it was like an open-ended game, you can ask anything and you can get a decent answer.
That’s how the journey of AI models started, and primarily software development teams have started to explore. Hugging Face and open-source models have helped at the right time to accelerate this adoption with new models and use cases. This adoption was not limited to software engineers; even everyday consumers with access to a computer or mobile phone with internet started using it as well.
The initial time was exciting to play with new tools and do experiments. Eventually, people started to realize how it can help to write software as well. With this, we entered the stage where someone with almost no background in software development can write or create software. I recalled a few incidents where software engineers were surprised that a non-technical person could write such complex, clean software with the help of AI tools. It was hard to believe, as software engineers used to enjoy their place of superiority and making a 10x improvement in their work. That was obviously shocking for software engineers.
Since OpenAI emerged, wherever I attend a conference or meetup, our conversations end with what we can do with AI. Due to a shift in my work and leadership focus, I stopped coding a few years back. This made me curious to explore coding again, and I was also surprised how months of work can be done in weeks and sometimes in a couple of days. That was a real change we see when one plays with AI tools with “clarity.” Yes, these days knowledge can be acquired easily as long as you are clear with what you want to know. Clarity is the new currency.
As I come from a software development background, it made me think how we can achieve more with the right usage of these tools. But at the same time, it has also made a lot of sense that we need people and the right mindset to take help from these tools. I was constantly tracking how companies are letting go of people and starting to use some tools or integrating them into existing work to replace humans.
At this point, a few questions arise such as:
- Can we really reach a point where we can use AI completely without human oversight?
- How will software development work evolve in the future?
- What shift will happen in software engineers’ work?
Let me put some of my thoughts here that I have developed based on my little understanding and learning of this field.
We have seen that when computers came, people were not ready to adopt them. It took a while to replace the calculator. The same thing happened with mobile and internet combined. Who would have even thought that one mobile can have more power than a PC at some point? There was the Nokia era and the smartphone market dominated by BlackBerry. There used to be mobile applications specifically targeted for corporate use, but with Android and iOS, the consumer market opened up and all new applications came into the market targeted for consumers.
Essentially, whenever there is a change in technology, resistance to adoption is visible. But once it settles down, we see more use cases and more adoption than the previous technology. I clearly remember data usage of 1GB per month was considered much higher, and now one can easily consume more than 1GB per day, that too by people not developing software.
We are going through a transformation in software development. We are seeing rapid changes and the speed to cope with them is hard. While short-term disruptions are real, once things settle down, we will see new use cases and new ways to work. The future can be brighter than we think. I might seem positive here, but that’s what past evidence and truth say: once technology settles down, we see more adoption and opportunity.
It’s still unclear in which direction we will adopt more. What’s certain is that we will be able to solve more problems than earlier. Earlier we had a limit of time or resources; these days AI is helping to fill the gap and achieve more.
Just my random thoughts!