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AI’s Role in Code Generation Sparks Excitement and Concern Among IT Leaders

Let’s go into the weekend with a piece from the Wall Street Journal.     Titled “AI Is Writing Code Now. For Companies, That Is Good and Bad.”      Quote:

IT leaders at United Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, Visa, Cardinal HealthGoldman Sachs, and other companies say they are excited about generative AI’s potential to automate certain parts of the code-writing process and expect it to result in significant productivity gains. 

However, some IT executives say that lowering the barrier for code creation could also result in growing levels of complexity, technical debt, and confusion as they try to manage a ballooning pile of software. “Technical debt” is a broad term describing the expected future costs for applying quick-fix solutions.

And this portion:

“I think it makes the CIO’s task a lot more complex, even as it makes the programmer’s task easier,” said Vivek Jetley, executive vice president and head of analytics at EXL, a data analytics and digital operations and solutions company.

These tools have the capacity to democratize code-writing, meaning more and more employees could start writing code for several new use cases. As the amount of code explodes, the CIO will need to work to control and govern that code and prioritize what to keep, what to junk and how to run the system, he said. 

“There’s going to be more confusion for sure,” said Jetley. 

Why do we care?

It’s good news, everyone – the complexity increases, and confusion is ideal for the service provider business.     Lean into understanding AI impact, as that confusion is ripe to be helped by customers.   The risk isn’t that AI will replace your job.  Instead, it will be replaced by someone who understands AI.