Looking Towards Software Development as Craft

It’s impossible to escape the doom and gloom think pieces anticipating how AI will impact the Tech industry, the majority of it focused on the death of the Software Developer. As AI enhances existing Software Development tooling (programming languages, IDEs, models, data analysis, project management), it’s natural that Software Developers will work at a higher level of abstraction and existing processes will become obsolete. This change is more of an evolution than a death… the way we communicate with computers is becoming closer to how we communicate between humans and there’s a shift from identifying a developer by the computer languages they write to the problems they solve. And yes, this is important, and yes, it’s also important to understand moral and ethical impact of AI on humans as a whole, but what is interesting to me is how AI will help Software move beyond Tech and into Craft. As AI integrates into Software Development processes, our existing non-AI assisted programming languages/tooling are no longer seen as valuable and will be liberated from the constraints of Capitalism: revenue, business objectives, scale, performance, growth, etc. When there is no external objective other than creation, Software Development can turn into a ‘capital C’ Craft. Similar to how traditional Crafts (weaving, woodworking, papermaking *wink wink*) reject modern machinery, there can be the formation of new Software communities that refuse AI-assisted decision-making in their tooling solely for the purpose of highlighting the mark of the human hand. This new motivation could lead to a different form of Software creativity beyond what we’ve seen, and that’s exciting! It’s the rebirth of a medium: a programming language that is now seen as inefficient under current drivers becomes a language that allows a deeper lever of control under a new purpose. A seed of positivity in the rubble.

Food for thought: