Google's Chief Scientist predicts that AI will become the enemy of junior coders in a year

Google's Chief Scientist, Jeff Dean, has said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can reach the capability of a junior software engineer within the next one year. He said this during Sequoia Capital's AI Ascent event. Dean believes that this future is not far away given the way AI is progressing rapidly.

There is already a shortage of jobs and tremendous competition in the tech sector. If AI really starts doing junior-level coding work, then it can create even more difficult situations for freshers. Dean's comment comes at a time when tools like ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and Google Gemini are already being used in coding. These tools can do things like writing repetitive code, giving suggestions, and generating complete code blocks.

Dean also said that writing code in IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is not the entire job of a junior engineer. They should also know many other skills like testing, bug fixing, performance debugging.

He said, "A virtual junior engineer should not only write code but also run tests, understand performance issues and try solutions. I think AI can progress in this direction as well."

Dean believes that AI can continuously improve by experimenting and reading documentation in such a virtual environment. He said, "I think a virtual junior engineer can prove to be good at reading documentation and trying new things and this method will make him better over time."