ChatGPT Isn't Coming for Your Coding Job

Software engineers have joined the ranks of copy editors, translators, and others who fear that they're about to be replaced by generative AI. But it might be surprising to learn that coders have been under threat before. New technologies have long promised to "disrupt" engineering, and these innovations have always failed to get rid of the need for human software developers. If anything, they often made these workers that much more indispensable. To understand where handwringing about the end of programmers comes from--and why it's overblown--we need to look back at the evolution of coding and computing.