What you need to know
- Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says the fast adoption of AI in organizations will prompt software developers to stop coding, forcing them to upskill in the field to gain new skills.
- The company views the prevalence of AI as a golden opportunity for developers "to accomplish more than they do today."
- According to Microsoft's latest Work Trend Index report, most execs won't hire anyone without an AI aptitude, making upskilling across all sectors a necessary evil.
Generative AI is reshaping and redefining every aspect of life as it becomes broadly available. The technology has sprouted from its early stage and is now much more than just AI chatbots with image and text generation capabilities. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang says we're on the brink of the next phase with AI, headlined by humanoid robots and self-driving cars.
The CEO has had some interesting insights about AI and its impact on the job market. For instance, Huang indicated that coding might be dead in the water as a career option for the next generation. He encouraged the youth to explore alternative career options in biology, education, manufacturing, or farming.
Alternatively, upskilling in the category might help salvage the situation. Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman shares the same sentiments. In a leaked recording, described as a fireside chat by Business Insider, Garman predicts a paradigm shift in coding as a career in the foreseeable future with the prevalence of AI.
According to Garman:
"If you go forward 24 months from now, or some amount of time — I can't exactly predict where it is — it's possible that most developers are not coding."
In the past few months, key players in the AI landscape like Microsoft and OpenAI have unveiled sophisticated tools such as GPT-4o. Touted for its magical capabilities, the model can reason across audio, vision, and text in real-time, making interactions with ChatGPT more intuitive. More interestingly, the tool is also great at writing and detecting errors in code. But where does this leave software developers?
Generative AI is at the very least expected to get better at handling mundane tasks as these tools continue receiving important updates and new features. As such, this will force professionals like software developers to reevaluate their job descriptions and potentially upskill in the field, to equip themselves with new skills.
It just means that each of us has to get more in tune with what our customers need and what the actual end thing is that we’re going to try to go build, because that’s going to be more and more of what the work is as opposed to sitting down and actually writing code.
Amazon Web Services CEO, Matt Garman
While addressing Garman's remarks, an Amazon spokesman cleared the air by stating that the comments didn't indicate the company plans to reduce the number of software developer roles. Instead, the technology would help the professions "accomplish more than they do today."
“Matt articulated a vision for how AWS will continue to remove undifferentiated heavy lifting from the developer experience so that builders can focus more of their skill and energy on the most innovative work,” the spokesperson concluded.
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What does the rapid adoption of AI in organizations mean for the job market?
Garman's comments on the impact of AI on work come after Amazon laid off hundreds of employees across its cloud and streaming services departments, as part of Amazon's broader plans to cut operational costs.
Microsoft's latest Work Trend Index report indicates that contrary to popular belief, AI is creating jobs. However, top executives at most corporations say they 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." Still, they've openly expressed concern about the lack of sufficient talent to fill vacancies at their companies.
Despite the rising concern around the technology, several reports indicate AI might be a fad and has already hit its peak. Another report suggests that 30% of AI projects will be abandoned by 2025 after proof of concept.
Interestingly, Microsoft recently updated its Services Agreement and categorically indicated that AI is prone to make mistakes and should only be treated as a guide, not a substitute for professional advice.
