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Nvidia’s CEO has stated that we shouldn’t teach kids programming because AI will do all the heavy lifting for them. While it’s true that AI can be a coder’s best friend, people should still learn how to program, no matter how much AI-generated code they end up using—for more than one reason.
What Did Nvidia’s CEO Say About AI and Programming?
At the 2024 World Government Summit in Dubai, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated that he believed there’s no point in teaching people how to code because programming will all be done by AI in the near future:
It is our job to create computing technology such that nobody has to program. And that the programming language is human. Everybody in the world is now a programmer. This is the miracle of artificial intelligence.
While AI can generate working blocks of code, there are arguments that people don’t need to learn the basics of programming if they want to create programs.
How Good Is AI at Programming?
Before we can pick apart Jensen’s statement, we have to look at what prompted him to say this in the first place.
AI models on the internet can help you with programming. General-use models like ChatGPT can do this, but you canuse a special model like CodeGPTdedicated to handling programming queries.
In general, these AI models do a great job of turning prompts into code. Its main forte, which Jensen alludes to above, is that you don’t need to know programming to generate code with an AI. Just tell it what you want in English, copy-paste the results, and you’ll (ideally) have error-free code that does what you asked.
Why Nvidia Is Wrong About Not Teaching Kids Programming
Huang made an excellent point, and his statement is grounded in real evidence. However, there are plenty of reasons to continue teaching people how to code.
1. AI Code Still Requires Knowledge to Check For Errors
AI code can often run without generating an error, but it’s not perfect. Learning how to code gives you the knowledge required to refine and hone the code the AI produces. As we state in our above coverage of CodeGPT:
So: CodeGPT can write code, but you should be careful because it won’t always give you the best output. What you get might be error-prone and might not follow the best practices. Whenever you use CodeGPT or any other AI-powered tool to write code, strive to understand what the code does first. Don’t just copy and paste.
It’s not just a case of errors; it’s also a case of making the code readable for humans and ensuring it followsbasic programming principles every programmer should know. If you blindly add AI-generated code, you risk creating a big mess of code that’s hard to untangle or, worse, vulnerabilities in your software, website, or otherwise.
2. Programmers Can Apply Experience to Solve Problems Better Than AI
Programmers are ultimately trying to solve a problem. Whether making an app for themselves or a client, they have to find the best way to turn a concept into reality using code.
As programmers gain experience with creating apps, they can better picture how a project goes from a drawing on paper to a functioning program. AI chatbots don’t have this same level of training that can learn from previous projects and apply what they learned to do a better job in the future.
3. Programmers Can Better Improve Code to Meet User Demands
If you’re making a program for someone else, there’s a good chance they’ll have some feedback. It’s a natural part of the back-and-forth process that ensures the client gets the product they want.
If a human coded the app, they can implement any feedback themselves and send over a second version, continuing this trend until it’s as the client wants. However, if someone is stuck with AI-generated code, the best they can do is ask the AI to make the tweaks and hope that the artificial intelligence processes their request properly (and again, without introducing errors, rewriting already useful parts of the code, introducing vulnerabilities, etc.).
4. Programmers Can Adapt to Changing Tech Trends Faster than AI
AI models get their knowledge from already-existing data. That makes them really good at re-creating things from stuff already on the internet but not so great at understanding the latest technologies and trends.
Programmers can always keep themselves up-to-date with the latest developments in their chosen language and implement them within their code. They also understand what languages work best with what tasks and can change the language used when one falls out of favor.
5. Programmers Can Respond to Urgent Patch Requests Faster Than AI
Finally, if something goes wrong with the code, it requires someone with programming knowledge to fix it. In the case of azero-day exploit, time is of the essence; the problem needs to be identified and patched out as quickly as humanly possible.
It doesn’t matter if the code is human or AI-written; both are susceptible to mistakes. However, someone who understands code will have an easier time locating and understanding the problem. Someone who doesn’t know how code works won’t even know what to ask an AI to do.
Jensen Huang’s statement wasn’t misguided. AI does allow people who have never programmed before to generate and use code. However, if someone wants to create something for themselves or someone else, they will need basic programming knowledge to ensure everything runs smoothly and efficiently.
