AI means everyone can now be a programmer, Nvidia chief says

[barbaraann]

Reuters May 29, 202312:58 AM PDT Updated 14 hours ago

TAIPEI, May 29 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence means everyone can now be a computer programmer as all they need to do is speak to the computer, Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) CEO Jensen Huang said on Monday, hailing the end of the "digital divide".

Nvidia has surged to become the world's most valuable listed semiconductor company as a major supplier of chips and computing systems for artificial intelligence.
...
"The programming barrier is incredibly low. We have closed the digital divide. Everyone is a programmer now - you just have to say something to the computer," he said.
...
https://www.reuters.com/technology/ai-means-everyone-can-now-be-programmer-nvidia-chief-says-2023-05-29/

The future is changing so fast I don't know how anyone could prepare or prepare young people.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Sure, if you're doing incredibly simple stuff (nt)

[brush]

2. Photoshop now has an AI component. You can add whatever imaging you can think up.

Things have changed completely almost overhight.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. Photoshop is not programming

[brush]

6. No, no. Photoshop with AI can now produce prgramming with whatever imaging...

you want you want on web sites
, and in much less time.

Everything's changed.

AI is proving to be as disruptive as predicted.

Many fields are going to go through what's happening wih the writers' strike that is continuing.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

8. Very different kinds of websites than the kind I work on

which are much more complex corporate intranet kinds of sites.

AI is so far off from being able to do what serious programmers (and I'm not that, but my bosses are) do ... it's not really that much of a practical concern. AI is mostly a resource to remind us of details we forgot, for most people, years ago.

[rog]

20. I asked ChatGPT to write a simple lua script ...

... to add a local weather feed to my desktop Conky on Linux.

It 'looked' good, but it didn't work. According to ChatGPT itself (because I asked it this question), its database is at least two years out of date. A lot of APIs have changed during that time and older methods to display a weather feed on your desktop no longer work.

I imagine it would have a really hard time with more serious projects.

In my experience with ChatGPT, s/he, it, whatever, talks a good game, but is a bullsh*tter.

.rog.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

23. You know what I'm talking about (nt)

[honest.abe]

3. Well programming perhaps but being a software engineer is quite a different matter.

AI can do basic programming that is learned from the internet programmming help sites but designing and building a complex software application requires many years of experience and understanding mulitple aspects of software systems.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. As an SQL guy having to learn some Python in my old age

I leverage AI to remind me of syntax stuff I've learned over the past few months where I don't recall every freaking function/method ... but the idea that AI could actually contemplate the overall project I'm working on ... is still way far off. I'll be dead by then.

[honest.abe]

11. Yeah, that's basically how I use it as well.

Its can really help will debugging or rewriting something in another language that I am not familiar with.

[Ms. Toad]

19. Agreed.

I've done bits (and occasionally something more substantial) of programming off and on for years without much formal training. So now I'm getting that formal training. Halfway thorugh 2 semesters of Java, Python is next. (With or without formal training, I know enough to write some/interpret more in Basic, Cobol, Fortran, C, HTML, Pascal.)

AI would be very helpful for syntax - I'm not fast enough in catching all of my stupid mistakes (or those generated by the testing software) to do well on the prof's exams. (Still earned an A in every class I've taken based on the quality of non-exam work - now or 4 decades ago, but dealing with all the minutiae is better suited to the brain power of AI than at least aging humans.

BUT - based on my playing with it in a legal context, its logic is still too simplistic for all but the simplest programing tasks.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

24. Exactly. SOMEDAY it may replace us, but that's a long way off

And I'm not convinced it ever really happens.

[honest.abe]

26. I think you will love Python after trying to learn Java.

Much simpler syntax. Good luck!

[Ms. Toad]

34. That's what I'm expecting.

It's been a long time since I did any COBOL programming (early 80s), but Java is the first seriously OOP language I've tackled. I don't know how it is ordinarily taught, but the text didn't really introduce any detailed OOP concepts until more than halfway through the course (Chapter 6 out of 11, IIRC), so I was wrestling with the complex syntax without much real understanding of why it was so complex, and why I got mysterious error messages that I later learned were not so mysterious - they were just inherent in the nature of the beast.

For non OOP languages, it's just fine to start out with "Hello World." But, personally, I would have wanted to start Java with a theoretical understanding of why that dang print command was so long.

[honest.abe]

38. Yep, that's Java!

I never really mastered it. I still do a bit but mostly do Javascript (nothing like Java), Python and various other scripting languages now.

[uponit7771]

28. Can't the current language editors catch some syntax mistakes near real time?

[Ms. Toad]

33. Yes,

and not only catching them, but predictive language for writing in the first place.

But the error messages are often cryptic and take time to decipher. For example, a missed semicolon (or misplaced one) may show up as a completely unrelated error 50 lines later. (Sort of like giving driving directions to someone by telling them to count 5 stop signs then turn on Market street - not realizing that one of the stop signs was removed, so your buddy calls you up 5 miles past the 5th stop sign destination and asks where Market Street was, since the 5th stop sign was already way past Market Street. So the error was the missing stop sign, but what your friend thinks the error was is the location of Market Street).

AI would be good at running multiple possibilities, and likely better at explaining them.

So - as to my challenges on his exams even though we are allowed to use language editors, he doesn't allow enough time on the exams to cut/paste and track down the error. You have to spot it nearly instantly in the snippet of text. (And a couple weren't actually syntax errors, even though they were described that way - they were violation of naming conventions.)

[barbaraann]

7. For better or worse, my software developer husband thinks it will eventually catch up.

Sometimes this scares him and sometimes it excites him.

[honest.abe]

10. LOL.. I think I understand what he is saying.

[Happy Hoosier]

9. Not impressed so far.

It might work fine for slapping together a simple windows-based app, but it is absolutely inadequate for the kind of work my team does. We’ve evaluated it for some time. Not impressed… yet.

[HappyCynic]

12. Can AI make everyone a programmer?

Technically, the answer to that could be pretty much yes. However, if the question is
"Can AI make everyone a good and/or professional programmer?"
I'm pretty sure the answer to that is a definite no. What AI will allow is for simple programs/applications to be created with little skill or knowledge. Eventually, even more complex programs/applications will be possible. There are huge caveats, though.
Applications need to be tailored to your target audience. Applications are also almost never launch and ignore. There are patches and updates. There are also ambiguous areas, especially with UI, where the best solutions are those tailored to the users of the program/application. For that, you'll need to have knowledge of what the code is actually doing and how it's all interacting. AI will give you a leg up when learning and also provide another tool to use. If I recall correctly, they made similar claims when Visual Basic (and Visual C) came out.

Arguably, you could compare it to photography. Before the digital camera days, there weren't a lot of photographers. Now, with digital cameras, and more importantly, phone cameras, almost everyone could be called a photographer. This doesn't mean that everyone is automatically a good photographer. Good photographers will know about how to compose a photo, the various settings for the ideal shot, issues with lighting, and so much more. There are more good photographers now than before but primarily due to the rampant availability of the technology. But it hasn't come anywhere close to allowing everyone to be a professional photographer.

[barbaraann]

22. That's a good way to think about it, IMHO. n/t

[Johnny2X2X]

31. Multiple languages

I think right now, they can have the effect of making a programmer fluent in 1 or 2 languages be able to program in new languages effectively.

Everyone? No, there are people who don't know the first thing about programming who won't be able to make anything with or without an AI helping. But for engineers who maybe don't know a language, but know the basic concepts and understand their systems, it's already making a difference for them. I know people in IT using it right now to write software for them in languages they don't know at all. But these are highly skilled tech minded people who have a really in depth understanding of the systems and applications they're working on.

But the general idea that it will increase people writing software is true and this is a very very powerful thing that will drive solutions forward quickly and create a lot of opportunities in our economy.

[Cheezoholic]

13. Just another tool for the toolbox, nothing more. n/t

[CentralMass]

14. Don't count on it.

[XorXor]

37. Why is that?

I take a similar stance that it's just another tool for humans to use. At least in its current state. There are people who are a lot more edumacated in this stuff who feel that were close to the limits of LLM. Perhaps they are wrong, but I found their arguments compelling.

[BootinUp]

15. The biggest hype since crypto. nt

[Yavin4]

17. It's more real than hype.

Crypto has an extremely limited use case benefits people who want to hide their money trail. Outside of that, no one else needs it.

[BootinUp]

18. The current AI models appear to be a much more limited

technology than is generally acknowledged according to various studies I have seen. Plus its just a matter of time before the lawsuits start.

[Yavin4]

16. Programming is knowing how to play the piano. Software Eng is being able to compose a symphony.

We've had AI player pianos for decades now.

[DemocraticPatriot]

21. And composing a GOOD symphony requires musical talent,

and perhaps a connection with the gods of music...

[uponit7771]

29. THIS !!!! ☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾 Best description yet, and there were analog piano players before digital

[Oneironaut]

30. The difference between a junior dev and a senior dev is...

knowing how to use StackOverflow.

(Joke)

[PSPS]

25. LOL. Says the CEO whose salary depends on people believing it.

[Oneironaut]

27. For junior programmers working on inconsequential projects, sure.

Even that is suspect. Try having ChatGPT write Assembly or C code for graphics drivers.

What a bonehead. I love when Executes spout garbage to try and sound smart, proving that they don’t know how their own product even works. I’m waiting for one of these self-important dummies to fire all their skilled software developers and begin panicking that ChatGPT isn’t as smart as as Forbes magazine said it is.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

32. This is a sales pitch.

[Johonny]

35. Pump and dump that stock

[XorXor]

36. If he is referring to ChatGPT, then I find it hit or miss for this

It can create fairly simple and common things with ease. Which is great for making little utilities to perform very specific tasks. It can also be useful at making smaller parts of a larger program that then needs to be integrated in with other parts of the code. But getting it to generate an entire complex program by itself is still not something I've seen anyone do. It also has issues with more obscure needs. So, as of now there is still a need for the person to have an understanding of the topic in order to create an effective prompt and then utilize the code. In simple cases you might be able to just give it the documentation of the obscure library, but that isn't always feasible.

I do expect this to get better, though. Particularly with more specific systems meant for programming.