Google Just Revealed How Much Of Its Code Is Now Being Generated By AI

There are countless careers that stand to be influenced, if not directly threatened, by the proliferation of artificial intelligence. But one of the first to show tangible evidence of widespread job loss is the once-auspicious profession of computer programming.

Leading the way

With an outsize impact on the tech industry, it stands to reason that Google often sets the trends followed by its business partners and rivals alike. That’s why it was so newsworthy when CEO Sundar Pichai told investors that AI has already taken on many of the tasks in this integral department.

“Today, more than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers,” he said.

From Google’s perspective, this powerful technology “will free up the company’s engineers to do more and move faster,” but not everyone believes this move bodes well for the future.

Voicing concerns

Potential job loss isn’t the only concern when it comes to replacing human engineers with AI models. A common point of contention among many critics involves the risk of more bugs being found in the resulting code.

Juxtaposing the precise nature of coding with the often unreliable results of AI, those who oppose the current trend worry that it will backfire. In fact, researchers have found that code created by AI — even when reviewed by humans — contained a higher number of bugs on average than human-created code.

Accepting reality

Despite nagging concerns about the increasing prevalence of AI within the computer programming realm (among others), there’s no real sign of the current trajectory changing course.

According to a survey of developers, nearly two-thirds say they are already using AI to produce code … and more than three-fourths expect to begin implementing such tools this year.

Chris Agee October 31st, 2024

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