No, AI doesn’t mean you don’t have to learn to code, at least according to one OpenAI researcher.
Szymon Sidor recently sounded off on why, even in a world with ChatGPT, Cursor, and other AI tools, it’s still good for current high school students to learn basic coding.
“You should absolutely learn to code,” Sidor said during episode of the company’s podcast from August. “One skill that is at a premium and will continue to be at a premium is having really structured intellect that can break down complicated problems into pieces.”
Sidor, who has worked at OpenAI for over eight years, said programming is a great way to learn such a skill.
Andrew Mayne, who hosts the podcast and previously served as OpenAI’s chief science communicator, questioned the notion that people would downplay learning to code simply because AI tools can do it for you.
“Whenever I hear people say, ‘Don’t learn to code,’ it’s like, do I want an airplane pilot who doesn’t understand aerodynamics? This doesn’t make much sense to me,” Mayne said.
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Their views echo some other top voices in the industry, including GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. Dohmke said in April that coding should be taught as a core subject.
AI’s coding abilities continue to advance. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan earlier this year that the company’s AI would soon be able to write code that matches the output of a mid-level engineer.
For his part, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously said his biggest piece of advice for high schoolers was to master using AI.
“The obvious tactical thing is just get really good at using AI tools. Like when I was graduating as a senior from high school, the obvious tactical thing was get really good at coding,” Altman told Stratechery in March. “And this is the new version of that.”
