I suspect that we are thinking about different use cases here.
For very standard things without complicated logic like an e-commerce app or showcase site, I can concede that an automated workflow could work without anyone ever looking at the code. This is (sort of) already possible without LLMs: there are several Full Site Editing apps already for building standard websites without looking at the code.
But suppose that your customer needs a program able to solve a complicated scheduling or routing problem tailored to some specific needs. Maybe our non-programmer knows the theoretical structure of routing problems and can direct the LLM to write the correct algorithms, but in this case it is definitely not an unskilled job (I suspect that <1% of the general population would be able to describe a routing problem in formal terms).
If our non-programmer is actually unskilled and has no clue about routing problems… what are we supposed to do? Throw vague specs at the AI and hope for the best?
If our non-programmer is actually unskilled and has no clue about routing problems… what are we supposed to do? Throw vague specs at the AI and hope for the best?
The person can… ask the AI about routing algorithms and related problems? Already now the bots are pretty good describing the current state of the field. And then come up with a workable approach interactively, before instructing the bot to spawn a specialized router app. That is to say, it will not be an unskilled job, it still requires someone who can learn, understand and make sensible decisions, which is in many ways harder than implementing a given algorithm. They just won’t be doing any “programming” as the term is understood now.
I suspect that we are thinking about different use cases here.
For very standard things without complicated logic like an e-commerce app or showcase site, I can concede that an automated workflow could work without anyone ever looking at the code. This is (sort of) already possible without LLMs: there are several Full Site Editing apps already for building standard websites without looking at the code.
But suppose that your customer needs a program able to solve a complicated scheduling or routing problem tailored to some specific needs. Maybe our non-programmer knows the theoretical structure of routing problems and can direct the LLM to write the correct algorithms, but in this case it is definitely not an unskilled job (I suspect that <1% of the general population would be able to describe a routing problem in formal terms).
If our non-programmer is actually unskilled and has no clue about routing problems… what are we supposed to do? Throw vague specs at the AI and hope for the best?
The person can… ask the AI about routing algorithms and related problems? Already now the bots are pretty good describing the current state of the field. And then come up with a workable approach interactively, before instructing the bot to spawn a specialized router app. That is to say, it will not be an unskilled job, it still requires someone who can learn, understand and make sensible decisions, which is in many ways harder than implementing a given algorithm. They just won’t be doing any “programming” as the term is understood now.