Linus Torvalds just talked about artificial intelligence. A central theme: its impact on society. Linus Torvalds sees artificial intelligence as a tool that is nothing revolutionary compared to compilers. He joins Bill Gates in believing that artificial intelligence will serve as a tool to improve the productivity of third parties who use it. These are controversial exits if we know that they contrast with those of several players in the IT sector who indicate that artificial intelligence has already taken over in this sector.
Linux Torvalds wanted to distance himself from all the media hype surrounding artificial intelligence. He sees it as a tool in the current phase of its development. He also suggests code review as an application area for artificial intelligence. The ability of artificial intelligence to guess the developer's intent will be useful for obtaining reliable code in a short period of time. However, one condition remains necessary: the developer must check what artificial intelligence offers him.
In fact, the developer remains the expert who understands the code and verifies that what has been synthesized by artificial intelligence corresponds to the developer's intent, as the CEO of GitHub points out. Roughly speaking, artificial intelligence is such a stage of evolution that it cannot serve as a shortcut for people who believe they no longer use their creativity or critical thinking.
Ms. Google confirms this when she announces that her Bard AI can now help code and build features for Google Sheets: Bard is still in the experimental stage and can sometimes provide inaccurate, misleading or false information, but presents it confidently. When it comes to coding, Bard may generate code for you that does not produce the expected result, or provide you with code that is suboptimal or incomplete. Always review Bard's answers and carefully test and review the code for errors, bugs, and vulnerabilities before relying on them.
Linus Torvalds' position comes in a context in which certain players declare that anyone can create video games using artificial intelligence.
This can be interpreted like this: there is no need for an IT developer specializing in video game programming. He illustrates this with the example of the game “Space Aliens”, about which he explains in a contradictory debate: “It only took 8 minutes to create it and 8 additional minutes to handle the artistic side.”
This type of production is based on the FRVR forge, about which the owner explains: It allows anyone to create games simply by describing them. The goal is to create a platform where creating, playing and sharing games is as easy as recording, watching and sharing videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. A demonstration (approx. ten minutes) of the platform's capabilities is available. It shows the steps to implement a space shooter based on this forge.
An ILO study lists programmers as one of the professions threatened by artificial intelligence, even if Linus Torvalds suspects the opposite
Around 21 million women's jobs and 9 million men's jobs are expected to be replaced by artificial intelligence. This emerges from a recent report by the International Labor Organization. The latter states that in the information technology industry, application programmers are among the professions at risk of automation.
ChatGPT has passed the 2022 edition of the computer science exam for high school students seeking to earn US university credits. An Internet user suggested a compilation of the answers suggested by the chatbot after pointing out that artificial intelligence received 32 points out of 36 possible. ChatGPT also passed the Google coding exam for a Level 3 engineer with a salary of $183,000. For these reasons, some observers believe that IT development workers face a threat from artificial intelligence. Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI, is one of them and predicts that in 5 years there will be no programmers left.
Source: Linus Torvalds
And you ?
Does Linus Torvalds' comparison of artificial intelligence to compilers seem appropriate to conclude that artificial intelligence is not revolutionary?
Does the developer always remain the expert who understands the code and checks whether what has been synthesized by artificial intelligence corresponds to the developer's intent? Can artificial intelligence eventually reach a stage of evolution where human intervention is no longer required?
What changes do you expect in the developer profession from 2024 given the introduction of artificial intelligence in the industry?
See also:
ChatGPT is intended to transform education as we know it, not destroy it as some think, says Douglas Heaven of MIT Technology Review
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51% of teachers say they use ChatGPT as part of their work, as do 33% of students, saying the tool has had a positive impact on their teaching and learning
Professor catches students cheating with AI chatbot ChatGPT: I'm worried he thinks these tools could make cheating worse in higher education