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As a scientist, do you see programming becoming accurate to the point that there is no need for humans due to the increased in technology and no jobs for humans that depend on computer error?

I am asking this question because I wish to pursue a career in this area of technology. I want to know there will still be jobs by the time I graduate from college and be needed for my job. #science #computer #programming #scientists

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Dhairya’s Answer

Hi Kimberly,
This is a great question! Good job think critically about future trajectories of technology and science. I've had the opportunity to work at one of the top artificial intelligence research labs and am currently working with a neuroscience research lab on developing an initiative to develop an AI based knowledge graph to help scientist do better research.

The short answer is that it is highly unlikely that most technology and engineering job will be automated away by the time you hit the job market. But it is likely that the nature, pay scale, and types of job may be very different. For example, 10 years ago simple web development was a highly paid and in demand job due to scarcity of tools and resources. Today anyone with no programming experience easily can make a webpage for themselves or their businesses using services like Squarespace, Wordpress, and other website buidling services. The web developers who get paid more have a different set of skills (in addition to html/css, its javascript, front end frameworks like Angular etc) and are tackling more complicated website development challenges (data driven websites that need to scale, supporting mobile, complex media types, etc). The people who have strong computer science and problem solving skills and are able to adapt and learn new technology stacks on the fly are the ones who are able to be successful.

You are asking the right questions. I highly recommend reading more about the debate over the future of work due to AI and articles about how to understand the growth rate of AI. Some very smart people believe that AI is growing very fast (exponential scale) and it could be that in next 20-30 years we will have automated most if not all work. From my experience, those claims are bit too aggressive, as general AI is much harder problem than the general policy experts realize. But narrow AI is a serious problem (things like self driving cars will destroy the trucking industry in the next 5 - 10 years). My recent experience with developing a knowledge layer for neuroscience research is that it is incredibly hard. AI is nowhere near the state where it will replace scientists nor will it replace scientific research and discovery. The space of developing smart technologies to help scientist however is a fantastic space and one that is very important. For example, neuroscientists have to work with very large and complex datasets, and having the right technology tools to help them parse, analyze and discover new findings in the data is very valuable for the progress of science. If you are thinking about studying technology, this is a great area to look into.

Finally, my advice would be to not think about the job you want when you graduate (it may not exist when you get there), but rather the types of challenges and problems you want to solve. When you're in college, try to take a balanced set of classes that will give you strong technical (computer science, stats & probability, and other hard sciences) and critical thinking skills (eg. philosophy or political science). The philosophy, political science, and sociology classes will teach you how about the different problems in the world and the technical classes will give a skill set on how to solve them.

I've also recommended some article below that you might find interesting. Good luck and keep asking forward thinking and critical questions like this one!
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Peter’s Answer

Let me articulate it this way. computer programming is a tool, the learning curve to program computer becomes less so more people can use computer to solve problems. However, the problems can only be solved if people thought of a solution using the available tool. in my mind, the computer still cannot solve many of the problems we have today (either not quick enough or not flexible enough). e.g. we invented paint roller to paint the wall but it still struggle with the edges or corner, so we invent another tool for those. However, one still need to know how to use those tools (aka programming). Until we have solved that issue (using a single tool) that can be automatically re-program to do the job, I continue to see we need to learn programming. as I point out earlier, one still need to solve the problems and pick the right tool, that is the skillset you want to learn in college.
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Steve’s Answer

You are safe to pursue this career! There is always a need for good programmers. But, make sure to pick the area that you like the best.

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