I may not be the smartest person in the room, but after working closely with Claude and ChatGPT over the past few months, I want to share some observations. AI won’t replace programmers—at least not anytime soon.
For AI to truly replace programmers, one of two conditions must be met:
Accept that our codebases will eventually become completely unreadable to humans. Once no human can maintain the code, all bugs must be fixed by AI. Inevitably, the AI will encounter a bug it can’t solve, and we’ll need human programmers to refactor and essentially rewrite everything from scratch.
Achieve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Much smarter people than me are working on this and debating when it might happen, but nobody knows for certain.
Regarding scenario two: if AGI arrives, it will transform our entire world so fundamentally that whether programmers exist will be the least of our concerns.
As for scenario one: I predict some brave companies will attempt this approach, but they’ll ultimately fail. I understand it might seem unwise to question some of the world’s wealthiest tech leaders and their AI ventures, but I suspect this is more about maintaining hype and attracting customers. Remember, despite years of promises, fully self-driving cars still aren’t widely available.
AI’s true strength lies in collaboration. Remember the 80/20 rule? AI can handle 80% of programming tasks in seconds, but humans are still essential for the remaining 20%.
The definition of a good programmer is already evolving. Beyond traditional skills like reading documentation, problem-solving, and quick thinking, we now need to master AI collaboration—learning to define our requirements clearly, set appropriate boundaries, and effectively communicate with AI systems.
Rather than being replaced, programmers are becoming team leaders where the rest of the team consists of AI agents. This shift represents an evolution in our role, not an elimination of it.