Recently, Cobalt Robotics founder Erik Schluntz broke his left hand. Despite this, Schluntz was able to continue coding effectively at his job using voice-to-text software and AI assistant Claude. He was able to write over 3,000 lines of code in one week by way of dictation.
“Breaking my hand forced me to write all my code with AI for two months. I’m never going back,” said Schluntz, adding that the silver lining was that it forced him to live in the future where humans would write very little of their own code — “Honestly, I loved it.”
Schluntz now feels optimistic about where the industry is going, and how to get the most out of these new AI tools. “I’m out of my cast and typing with both hands again, but Claude is still writing most of my code,” he said.
The Relevance of a CS Degree?
Given that Claude, GitHub Copilot and similar bots can write a lot of code these days, one question arises—is computer science worth studying at all?
A few months ago, one argument went viral on X. Entrepreneur and investor Chris Paik called it The End of Software.
His argument was that everyone now has the means to freely produce their own periodicals, TV series, and podcasts thanks to the internet. The next big thing is an internet driven by LLMs that will enable anyone to create free software, including non-engineers. “Today’s computer science majors will be similar to late 1990s journalism majors,” he said.
During Microsoft Build this year, it was repeatedly stated that “everyone is a developer now.” This suggests that even without prior coding experience, one can learn to code and secure jobs in the AI industry.
So, it’s no surprise that IBM’s AI chief, Matthew Candy, stated that people may no longer need a computer science degree to work in the tech field. Candy believes that in the age of AI, soft talents such as creativity, problem-solving, and adaptability are more valuable than technical ones.
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has also said that computer science degrees will lose some of their value as artificial intelligence becomes more advanced. “Twenty years from now, if you are a coder, you might be out of a job because it’s just math and so, whatever we’re defining the AI to do, someone’s got to know the topic,” he said.
Given the evolving landscape of the tech industry and the shifting attitudes toward formal educational requirements, it’s evident that your resume needs an overhaul.
Sam Altman said, “University degrees are IMO status and not substance at this point,” elaborating that he would rather see someone’s exceptional work or how they perform at a task.
The Rise of 10x Developers
At the same time, many experts believe AI will actually increase the need for computer science graduates. As Ahmed Awais, founder of Langbase said, “Software development is here to stay. Humans will remain a big, most essential part of any software toolchain.”
This is similar to what AIM said earlier about there being jobs for 10x developers. Contrary to popular belief, the tech job market is booming with a high demand for specific skills. All developers have to do is move beyond being “generic software engineers.”
Even developers on Reddit agree that AI is simply incapable of replacing a developer. “No way AI can properly learn how to use internal or custom tools at an org – there’s just not enough material for it,” wrote one developer.
This is similar to what François Chollet, the creator of Keras, said a few months ago. He predicted that there would be around 10 million more coding jobs in the next five years, but those would be for people who have the expertise in writing code in Python, but most of the coding would be done by AI.
The Future of Software Engineers
Russell Kaplan, who recently took over as president of Cognition Labs, the company behind the world’s first software AI agent, made several predictions about the future of software engineering.
One of them stood out when he said “Models will be extraordinarily good at coding, very soon.” He believes that research labs are investing more in coding plus reasoning improvements than any other domain for the next model generation. “Their efforts will bear fruit,” he added, saying that the future of software engineers would involve managing AI agents.
