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Comment by bsaunder | Hacker News Reader

> I didn't think would be possible without someone very skilled in photoshop going over the images

And this is similar how deep learning will likely erode the need for programming (IMHO).

Deep learning won't necessarily write programs (any more than this AI manipulates images via photoshop). Folks that say, don't worry, we can't write programs easily with AI are missing the vector. Writing programs isn't necessary for there to be widespread disruption.

Most programming is essentially hooking up I/O (of which UIs are a subset) to APIs, data stores and data manipulation. The "goal" of programming is not the code, but the functionality it provides.

AI's don't need to learn to code any more than they need to learn to use photoshop. They need to learn to provide functionality (or in this case manipulate image data).

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> "AI's don't need to learn to code any more than they need to learn to use photoshop. They need to learn to provide functionality (or in this case manipulate image data)."

This is interesting. My counterpoint would be that if you rely on AI over programs you lose human-editability and determinism. So fixing a bug or adding a new feature might mean diving into some opaque model rather than adding a few lines of code. You couldn't do anything where consistency is important, like security, manipulating a database with important information, or GUI design. I think that at least protects large swaths of software development.

Even this example seems less like a replacement for Photoshop and more like a cool new feature Photoshop could add

In the real world we rely on humans for lots of stuff, and humans aren't actually deterministic either. Sure, if you train someone to perform a task they'll probably do a good job, or they might suddenly come into work distracted and cause a problem. Diagnosing problems with people is often similarly hard, and we've had all of civilization to work on it.

This hasn't caused the sky to fall, yet. So, perhaps we'll just learn to make AI behave properly under most circumstances, and deal with failures and glitches as we always have with people.

_Coding_ is more about understanding what your boss/clients want and turning it into something more concrete, so it's merely a NLP problem. This will, I think, see adoption in "app/website builder" tools like Squarespace.

Then there is real programming, which IMHO will get automated in the far future.

Its a NLP problem if your boss/client wants to talk with you. At the end of the day, they don't really "want" to TALK WITH YOU, they want the functionality they get as a result of talking with you.

If there are other ways for them to efficiently get the functionality, they are good with that (as much as they might like you).

Similar to you wanting a pizza. You could call and talk with someone (which you don't really want, it was a necessary step), or you fill out the right form/app. Either way, you want the result, not the process.

Your boss/client wants the result of your work, not the work process required to get it necessarily.

It seems likely to me that modern deep learning enabled tools will make it easier for your boss/client to get the result they want directly.

Deep learning + more graphically oriented data flow UIs seems like it will heavily erode the need for traditional programming as users will be able to more directly achieve the functionality they are looking for.

The are many scenarios where we still need provable code/security, i.e. health and safety related matters.

Not sure I would fully entrust a trained AI to control even an elevator door, where failure could result in bodily harm.

The planning an AI could take over from existing elevator controllers already uses constrained access to the motors. Nothing about AI demands stupid system design.

No, but AIs will override all elevator scheduling code. It just need to keep tuning all the knobs until everyone gets to their floor as fast as possible.

Please don't build an elevator whose ai is instructed to get people to their floor "_as fast_ as possible"

Someone still has to program the AI for the forseeable future.

If you're writing machine learning/intelligence, please just consider how to do so without condemning us to a dystopian future.

or if it's a dystopian one, at least make it a cool dystopian one.

So while maximising paperclip production, it should also manipulate the stock market to bring down the price of black leather pants?

no, don't, please. programming is a means to an end.

programming is fun the same way long division by hand is fun.

i can't wait for the robots to release me from the monotony.

Not everyone would agree with you :) Although I think even most of us who enjoy programming would be happy to have some form of automation as an option.

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