Are tools like CoPilot going to make bad developers?

General Developer Forum General Dev Chat
1

I’ve tried CoPilot and it gave me insights I never thought of. These kinds of developments have a lot of potential but I’m a concerned.

It’s like using navigation when I drive. The navigation software takes away my concerns of getting to the right address at the right time. That is wonderful. But then the next day ask me to drive to the same location without the tool. I’m sure I cannot do the whole trip from memory because I didn’t need to pay attention during the first drive.

Or another example is the calculator. Kids nowadays don’t know how to calculate out the top of their heads. Ask any kid what the answer is to 5 x 7 and they grab their phone (or calculator) to give the answer.

The statement is that it’s a great learning tool but I think the opposite is true. Our brains are going to be less trained and we become totally addicted to and dependent on using the tools. Is that the way we want to go? I’ve been a developer for 45 years retiring soon but this development gives me worries.

What do you think?

2 Likes
2

Corresponding tweet for this thread:

Share link for this tweet.

2 Likes
3

I think you make some valid points. To me it’s both worrying and exciting, ultimately, at some point there won’t be a need to code - we’ll just tell the computer what we want and it will do it. Probably quicker and more efficiently too :lol:

There are lots of concerns around CoPilot tho, here’s one that cropped up today:

1 Like