This isn't just a human-generated blog—it's about the importance of being a good communicator
Forgive me for using the annoying sentence structure, in the title, that has become so widespread across the Internet in the era of AI-generated slop. As I look through LinkedIn, I am hit with one post after another about how my job, as a software developer, is about to be wiped out because these newfangled AI tools are able to write thousands of lines of code blazingly fast; as if that metric was ever useful to determine someone’s coding skills.
What worries me about the rise of generative AI is that it discourages people from learning or getting better at what they do. I’ve had people asking me whether getting into software development would be a wise choice given that “AI will be able to do everything itself.” Even worse, I’m seeing people and businesses become lazy when it comes to reasoning and communication. You have definitely felt that news articles and online content are becoming less unique… lacking creativity and without any soul.
I’ve decided to write this post to encourage you to ignore the noise and keep learning the things that matter. Even though the world thinks that software development is now “solved”, on the other hand, I think there’s going to be a massive demand for people who well and truly know their stuff, inside out. A large language model does not store any information about empathy, abstraction and good practices: all that it knows about is which word is most likely to appear after another.
But, software development involves more than just the words we say: how we share our ideas and give feedback, how we paint a picture of our plan that our colleagues will understand and how we can fill in the gaps about anything left unsaid. Once you master the ability to communicate clearly with the people you work with and add in the principles of good software development, then you can never be replaced.
I’ve adopted and translated this blog post into Maltese. You can read the Maltese version by clicking here.