Those who think AI will make them better peogrammers make me think about the kind of day to day job they have. If a prompt is going to solve your problem, are you anything more than an entry level programmer? AI will not think for you and it's clear it is garbage against complexity.
We've already gone through a couple of iterations of tools hyped to relieve programmers from the "tedium" of writing code. First, CASE tools with code generators, then UML was supposed to make it possible to draw diagrams telling the tool how to generate the code to implement the ideas.
Spicy autocomplete isn't going to solve the writing vs. thinking steps any better.
I don’t think that comparison is apt. I’m too young for CASE, but the problem with UML (and really all the big concepts from the XML era) has always been that it’s far too lofty in scope; generating full applications from diagrams is a pipe dream.
On the other hand, ”spicy autocomplete“ (loved that one) doesn’t promise salvation. It just finishes lines for you, one at a time. Often it just ”knows“ what you were about to type anyway. Sometimes it’s a bit off, you add a few characters, now it gets it. It’s not really magical, just… useful. These lines you don’t have to finish accumulate, and if you get into a healthy flow, it vastly speeds up the coding process.
The AI Hype tends to lean towards salvation, so I'd ask the question, "is it worth it if isn't?" For all the billions of dollars, tens of TWh of electricity, and tsunamis of carbon emissions, is this limited usefulness all we get?
You’re looking at it upside down: AI is freeing you from the onerous work of writing actual code, and gives you more time to think. It’s a tool to spare you from the boring parts, the CRUD and the glue code and the correct library invocations. Programming is mostly about solving complex problems, yes, but it also involves writing tons of instructions to get the computer to go beep. With Copilot et al, you can simply spend your time on thinking instead of writing instructions.
I personally think AI is just going to become a tool that will increase the table stakes by making those using it more productive.