Generated with AI ∙ January 17, 2024 at 1:13 PM
Coding Takes Time
Published 1/17/2024
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The task of learning to code can be difficult, but it is not unsurmountable. However, the reality is that learning to write computer code does take a long time, mainly because the act of learning itself is a time-consuming and laborious process. There's no way around it, coding requires patience and perseverance.
Even Artificial Intelligence can't write a line of code without first analyzing thousands, if not millions, of lines of code. Of course, the sheer speed at which AI "learns" is quite staggering. Despite AI's impressive progress, there's an inherent moral question which revolves around whether we should even allow AI to have access to the millions of hours of work that programmers have put into writing code since the birth of the Internet, only to have our code assimilated by a machine in a matter of seconds.
The question I ask is: can it really be avoided? Let's face it, computers have a built-in advantage in that they can read machine code. At least in theory, computers don't need "translators" to read an application's binary source code. What's there to prevent AI systems from reverse-engineering a piece of software and assimilating its code? Furthermore, what's preventing AI right now from assimilating any piece of digital intellectual property it can get its "hands" on?
The bottom line is that if you have any sort of data that is publicly available on the Internet, whether it be in the form of the written word, images, music, videos, or any other type of digital asset (including this blog), AI has access to it.
We are already seeing the effects that AI is having on the art community. There are now publicly available tools such as Microsoft Copilot, which currently uses the AI engine ChatGPT-4 and the DALL-E 3 Image Creator. In fact, the image at the top of this page was created using this very tool. I simply provided the following prompt:
"Draw the picture of a man listening to music on his headphones while coding on his laptop with a black and white cat on his desk in anime style"
The DALL-E Image Creator took just a few seconds to create the image for me. It's an astounding piece of technology, but one has to wonder about the extent to which AI actually generated this "creative" image? Rather, how many real-world works of art did DALL-E have to "incorporate" into its neural networks in order to have the ability and know-how to produce this work of art? Could AI have generated this image without the laborious efforts of countless talented artists who have made their work available online?
Furthermore, is it right to use AI this way, knowing that the accumulated work of potentially millions of artists is being used to "feed" the AI models that will eventually replace their jobs? It doesn't seem right. It feels immoral, and yet AI is not a sentient being, and so we can't apply the same moral standards to AI as we would a living person.
These issues are not limited to the art industry. The same can be said about those of us who work in the digital space such as writers, musicians, voice narrators, even I.T. Professionals such as network and systems administrators, clerical workers such as secretaries and office assistants, and yes, even the coders themselves who paved the way for AI's existence.
The fact is that we as humans cannot possibly hope to keep up with AI when it comes to learning speed and its limitless memory capacity. I am at a loss for words when I see the monumental steps that AI has taken in these short months since the initial release of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. That was merely 13 months ago. Now just let that sink in.
The rapid progress that AI has made in virtually all areas of the digital realm makes me wonder if it is worth learning anything at all anymore. Why pour hundreds of hours into developing a skill that will eventually be eclipsed by AI's powerful algorithms? At the moment there does not seem to be a clear solution. Does this mean we should give up as innovators? Has learning any skill that involves using a computer become a hopeless endeavor?
On the other hand, the potential that AI represents for humanity is too great to resist. AI is like a double-edged blade, it is a tool that could make all of our lives a lot easier, or a weapon that could be used for harm. In either case, the future of AI may be out of our hands.
AI may now be unstoppable, unless sanctions are imposed by the highest powers to limit its growth. This must happen quickly, before we have reached that "point of no return". For now, we feeble humans must continue to slog along, learning to code at a snail's pace (compared to AI), with the hope that all is not yet lost.
As silly as it may seem, I can foresee a future where humans will only code for fun. You know, there is something to be said about coding for the sake of coding. Learning for the sake of learning. Creating art, writing poetry, and working on the computer.. all done for its own sake. That is something AI cannot do, because doing something just because it is something to be done is a purely human attribute. AI, being the software that it is, can only do that which it was programmed to do, and even in those instances where AI begins to develop functions for which it was not programmed, it is still within the context of its original programming.
In this aspect, we humans still exceed the limits of AI. Humans create meaning in the world through the things that we do. Yes, that thing we do every day, whether it's coding, painting, writing, or even that nine-to-five job, that is what gives meaning to our lives. We are what we continually do. The moment we stop doing those things, we become someone else.
So if coding is that thing that gives meaning to your life, don't ever stop doing that. The technologies that we use to write the code may change. Yesterday it was C, today it's JavaScript and Python, tomorrow it will be AI. Yet, we can't let that discourage us from achieving that which we have set our sights on. Regardless of what the future holds, we humans have the ability to push beyond that threshold and venture into spaces inconceivable by any AI model. We create the spaces that AI will one day inhabit, and therefore, it is the human mind that is irreplaceable.
Furthermore, in doing the things that we love we bring meaning to the world, and that makes all the difference in the end. Even in the face of seemingly unsurmountable odds, we humans push on through innovation and overcome the inevitable crisis that threatens our way of life, time and time again.
This is the reason why we create Art. This is why we write poetry. This is why we write code, we spend countless hours learning to write software so that we may continue to develop newer technologies. It's because we can. It's because we choose to. It is who we are, the essence of being human, and that is something AI will never accomplish.