Hinton believes that in the future, AI will make undergraduate university education—especially technical disciplines like programming—almost obsolete.
For learners, this is a revolution in the making.
For institutions, this is an existential issue.
As AI systems take over routine learning, students may need to rethink the value they seek from university.
The focus may shift from rote memorization and programming basics to creativity, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and cutting-edge research.
In short, this is not the end of education, but a complete overhaul.
Today, some people discourage others from learning programming, arguing that AI will automate the process.
Turing Award and Nobel Prize winners have written: 'The possibility of programming professions disappearing is far greater than them becoming omnipotent. More and more computers will program themselves.'
AI, how should one choose a major?
Is CS still worth studying?
As 'self-programming technology' emerges in the form of AI, many are worried about how AI will affect IT professionals.
However, such doomsday predictions are not new.
Tracing back over sixty years, Nobel Prize winner Herbert Alexander Simon predicted that 'self-programming technology' would make the programmer profession extinct before 1985:
Programmers become the power elite in automated enterprises. We can abandon this illusion.
More likely, programming will go extinct through the development of self-programming technology.
Computers will increasingly write programs for themselves.
Comments from that time still echo today.
Last year, Nobel Economics Prize winner, labor market economist, and London School of Economics professor Christopher Pissarides warned the younger generation not to overinvest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
He stated that skills needed to drive the next stage of AI development, such as data collection, organization, and development, will become outdated as AI will replace these jobs.
Pissarides added: 'The demand for these new IT skills contains the seeds of self-destruction.'
In the long run, skills in management, creativity, and empathy will remain in high demand, as these are difficult for technology, especially AI, to replace.
At the beginning of this year, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang expressed a similar view:
AI can automatically handle programming work. Now everyone is a programmer. This is the 'miracle of AI.'
He suggested focusing energy on more valuable areas, such as biology, education, manufacturing, or agriculture.
Recently, Communications of the ACM reported on the bleak career prospects for programmers.
AI technology has been proven to handle tasks traditionally performed by computer programmers, from writing code to executing more complex functions, not only improving efficiency but even replacing human work in some cases.
The global reemployment and execution coaching company Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that in 2024, layoffs due to 'technology updates' exceeded 15,000, the highest number they have ever recorded.
The Washington Post's data department stated: Over the past two years, more than a quarter of computer programming jobs in the US have disappeared, the most severe decline in the industry's history.
According to reports, programmer positions are being replaced by AI.
Google's 1/4 of new code is generated by AI, as if echoing the disappearance of 1/4 of programmer positions!
Not only is the number of positions decreasing, but the number of job seekers is also increasing, making competition extremely fierce.
Although market demand remains high, competition for positions has become extremely intense.
Last year, a senior front-end/full-stack developer shared his bizarre job search experience on Reddit.
He is practicing accepting rejection, staying grateful, and reminding himself that denying my technical abilities does not mean denying 'me' as a person.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRQ4d8Rjmwg
https://x.com/WesRothMoney/status/1909252504501825554
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-02/nobel-prize-winner-cautions-on-rush-into-stem-after-rise-of-ai
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/jensen-huang-advises-against-learning-to-code-leave-it-up-to-ai