Ai Prediction #1, A World Without Programmers

By Greg Walters

The New World breaks free of syntax errors and infinite loops.

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​Let’s start with ‘what is programming’:

At its core, programming translates real-world actions into a language that computers can understand, instructing the hardware on what to execute; from adding numbers to powering pixels on your screen. This process involves various programming languages such as COBOL, Pascal, Fortran, Lisp, Assembler, Python, Rust and more.

​In the olden days, programmers would write code in these languages, which then got compiled by an assembler into machine language, understandable by processors.  I remember using the VAX late at night because my code could be compiled in 20 minutes, instead of hours, because nobody was using the mainframe.

​AI's current and projected capabilities to automate complex tasks, understand and process natural language, and learn from interactions to optimize its operations – is accomplished without programmers.

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​Think I’m wrong? Consider the meaning of ‘low code’ and ‘no code’.

The No-Code and Low-Code Platforms
The rise of no-code and low-code platforms, propelled by AI, is making programming accessible to non-technical users, allowing them to create applications, automate workflows, and analyze data without writing traditional code.

AI's Role in Automation
AI's ability to automate coding tasks, debug, optimize code, and even generate new code based on natural language prompts is rapidly advancing. Tools like GitHub Copilot are demonstrating this by assisting in coding tasks. These tools handle the more sophisticated programming tasks, eliminating the need for manual coding.

​Prompting is the Thing
Prompting is the universal interface between humans and technology. This means that the key skill is no longer writing code but knowing how to ask AI to execute tasks. The democratization of technology through AI enables anyone to develop apps, manage systems, and solve problems with just a prompt. Traditional programming skills become less relevant as AI's understanding and execution capabilities grow.

AI's Integration into Operating Systems

There’s more, there always is…

AI's role goes beyond application development to the elimination of operating systems. AI will replace Windows, iOS, and Linux into intelligent platforms that can manage and optimize themselves, adapt to user needs in real-time, and integrate seamlessly with a variety of devices and services. This AI-driven system will be the all-in-one solution for search, retrieval, processing, and presentation of information, eliminating the need for distinct operating systems and the extensive programming required to maintain them. 

​See Ai Prediction # 3 A World without Windows ​

Today, instead of writing intricate code, we instruct machines in our spoken language. LLMs, like ChatGPT, translate our commands into a programming language that machines comprehend, accessing data and performing functions based on our prompts.

This is more than a speech to text conversion for search.  We command the system for results and those results can be provided in a manner we instruct. When we interact with AI by asking it to perform tasks, we are programming—no need for Pascal, Lisp, Python, scripts, or macros.

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