There are signs that computers will be able to code much better than humans by the end of the year, but some AI experts believe that it’s still vital for people to learn how to code.
AI researcher and educator Andrew Ng has said that not learning to code because of recent advances in AI is the “worst career advice ever given”. “Some people today are discouraging others from learning programming on the grounds AI will automate it. This advice will be seen as some of the worst career advice ever given,” he wrote on X.
“Statements discouraging people from learning to code are harmful!” he added. “In the 1960s, when programming moved from punchcards (where a programmer had to laboriously make holes in physical cards to write code character by character) to keyboards with terminals, programming became easier. And that made it a better time than before to begin programming,” he argued.
“Today’s arguments not to learn to code continue to echo his comment. As coding becomes easier, more people should code, not fewer! Over the past few decades, as programming has moved from assembly language to higher-level languages like C, from desktop to cloud, from raw text editors to IDEs to AI assisted coding where sometimes one barely even looks at the generated code (which some coders recently started to call vibe coding), it is getting easier with each step,” he said.
“I see tech-savvy people coordinating AI tools to move toward being 10x professionals — individuals who have 10 times the impact of the average person in their field. I am increasingly convinced that the best way for many people to accomplish this is not to be just consumers of AI applications, but to learn enough coding to use AI-assisted coding tools effectively,” Ng said.
Ng added that the best way to navigate the current AI revolution was to learn the basics of coding. “One question I’m asked most often is what someone should do who is worried about job displacement by AI. My answer is: Learn about AI and take control of it, because one of the most important skills in the future will be the ability to tell a computer exactly what you want, so it can do that for you. Coding (or getting AI to code for you) is a great way to do that,” he said.
It’s a persuasive argument. While AI has become astonishingly good at programming — and continues to become better every day — it still needs human beings to give directions and instructions. Also, like Andrew Ng says, non-coders can now get into coding easier than ever before, with AI taking care of most of the laborious tasks, and humans only needing to give instructions in a language of their choosing. AI will undoubtedly disrupt the programming job market, but counter intuitively, it might just make it important for everyone to learn how to code.