Can AI create an app with only a immediate? ChatGPT creator OpenAI is working towards that future by creating an AI agent that may exchange essential work presently finished by human software program engineers.
At a Goldman Sachs conference final month, OpenAI’s Chief Monetary Officer Sarah Friar mentioned that OpenAI is getting ready an AI agent that goes past serving to software program engineers — it does all of their duties for them. As a substitute of merely completing lines of code or producing new code, the agent acts by itself to create apps, run high quality assurance exams, check for bugs, and write documentation.
“It is actually an agentic software program engineer that may construct an app for you,” Friar mentioned. “Not solely does it construct it, it does all of the issues that software program engineers hate to do. So out of the blue you may drive multiply your software program engineering workforce.”
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar. Photographer: Lauren Justice/Bloomberg through Getty Photographs
The AI agent, known as A-SWE, will probably be OpenAI’s third agent device. In January, the AI startup launched Operator, an AI agent that may store for groceries or make dinner reservations. One month later, the AI startup launched Deep Research, an AI agent that surfs the net to generate in-depth analysis reviews.
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OpenAI is not the primary to develop an AI software program engineer. In March 2024, Cognition AI launched a coding assistant named Devin, claiming that it was the primary AI software program engineer. Nevertheless, the AI was solely in a position to full three out of 20 coding tasks in an impartial check.
As AI’s coding abilities enhance, trade leaders are warning that it might take over software program engineering roles. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stated final month that AI might write “basically all the code” inside a yr, expressing “a good quantity of concern” concerning the influence of AI on jobs. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan in January that Meta is engaged on an AI that writes code in addition to “a midlevel engineer” this yr.
In the meantime, Google indicated in October that AI wrote one-fourth of “all new code” on the firm.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last month that the talents wanted to excel in tech have modified due to AI. He acknowledged that “the obvious tactical factor is simply get actually good at utilizing AI instruments” as an alternative of mastering how one can code.
“In some unspecified time in the future, yeah, possibly we do want much less software program engineers,” Altman mentioned.
OpenAI acknowledged earlier this month that it had raised $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation.