AI programming tools snatch coding jobs from fresh college graduates: report
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New York: The spread of AI programming tools with their capacity to generate thousands of lines of codes are snatching jobs at major IT companies adding to the increasing layoffs, New York Times reported.
The example of Manasi Mishra, a graduate from Purdue University who, growing up near Silicon Valley, believed in the rhetoric that learning coding with a computer science degree could get her starting salary, points to the bleak future many face today.
‘The rhetoric was, if you just learned to code, work hard and get a computer science degree, you can get six figures for your starting salary,” Mishra, now 21, was quoted as saying.
Considered as a golden opportunity for fresh graduates, many including even US presidents urged young people to learn coding with tech companies promising high salaries and perks to them.
The deep change in the field is derailing the ‘employment dreams’ of young people graduating in coding, turning them to find some other work.
The unemployment rates among college graduates and computing engineering majors are reportedly at its highest of 6.1% and 7.5% respectively, it is reported citing the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The unemployment rate among biology and art history graduates is just 3 per cent where more than double of it is reported among computer majors.
Jeff Forbes, a former program director for computer science education and workforce development at the National Science Foundation, expressed concern at the situation reportedly saying ‘Computer science students who graduated three or four years ago would have been fighting off offers from top firms — and now that same student would be struggling to get a job from anyone’.
With tech firms turning to AI coding assistants, computing graduates are feeling the heat of unemployment.
The trend of using AI coding assistant is all the more evident from the billboard advertisement in San Francisco for AI tools like CodeRabbit offering better coding help than humans.
Matthew Martin, U.S. senior economist at Oxford Economics, called the situation ‘unfortunate’ as college grads are losing their entry-level positions to AI technology.