Non-Tech Founders: Can ChatGPT (AI) Replace Your Team of Developers?

Does ChatGPT replace developers

We welcomed 2023 with short whispers and long chatters about the launch of ChatGPT, a chatbot initially launched by OpenAI in November 2022.

What does ChatGPT do?

ChatGPT stands for – Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of larger language models, tweaked to supervise and reinforce learning techniques.

Given the conversations this AI/ML chatbot is making worldwide, you, as a non-tech founder still finding your footing in tech-based business, may find yourself worried, wondering if ChatGPT – the recent AI/ML chatbot could replace your team of developers, much like they raised the same questions with the launch of GitHub Copilot in 2021.

Will they?

Our Research

Recently, we came across Fernando Doglio’s article – “I asked Chat GPT to build a To-Do app – Have we finally met our replacement?”. Fernando is a published author, Podcast host/producer, and developer advocate for OpenReplay, based out of Madrid, Spain. His goal with the blog was to ascertain whether ChatGPT can create as efficiently as a developer, enough to replace developers altogether.

Here’s how he went about testing ChatGPT’s capabilities: Placed a series of prompts to the chatbot:

The Prompt:

import React, { useState } from ‘react’ import { useRouter } from ‘next/router’ function ToDoApp() { const [items, setItems] = useState([]) // useState to store the to-do items const router = useRouter() // handle form submission const handleSubmit = (event) => { event.preventDefault() const form = event.target const input = form.querySelector(‘input’) // add the new to-do item to the array of items setItems([…items, input.value]) input.value = ” } // handle item removal const handleRemove = (index) => { // create a new array without the item at the specified index const newItems = items.filter((item, i) => i !== index) setItems(newItems) } return ( <div> <h1>To-Do App</h1> <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}> <input type=”text” placeholder=”Add a new item” /> <button type=”submit”>Add</button> </form> <ul> {items.map((item, index) => ( <li key={index}> {item} <button type=”button” onClick={() => handleRemove(index)}> Remove </button> </li> ))} </ul> </div> ) }
export default ToDoApp On close look, the code didn’t perform as asked and needed further clarification of prompts which led to more code modification to add support for a cloud database.

On further prompts, the results were impressive, yet not what was required. Although the code worked and showed precision in detail, Fernando found further errors in the code. These errors emphasized the shortcomings of the chatbot at this stage.

Going off the same tangent, our approach was to find if there were any similar shortcomings. Apart from this testing series by Fernando and reference to it, we also placed a series of prompts that showcased what ChatGPT as an AI/ML thought of its capabilities as replacing developers and thereby rendering offshore centers for software development useless.

So we asked ChatGPT chatbot: Can ChatGPT replace developers altogether?

“ChatGPT is a powerful natural language processing model that can generate human-like text and perform a wide range of language-related tasks, but it is not currently able to fully replace the role of developers.

While ChatGPT can automate certain language-related tasks, such as text generation and question answering, it still requires a developer to implement and integrate it into a system or application. The model also requires training and fine-tuning by a developer, who must understand the specific requirements and constraints of the task and the target audience.

Additionally, ChatGPT, like any other AI model, can be seen as a tool that can help developers to be more efficient and productive, but it cannot replace the creativity, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking of a human developer.”

Netsmartz’s take on ChatGPT’s relevance to Developers

Advantages of using AI/ML tools like ChatGPT:
  1. ChatGPT can help you save time.
  2. ChatGPT can help you improve your level of productivity.
  3. ChatGPT could help you learn new things.
Disadvantages of using AI/ML tools like ChatGPT:
  1. They are still in the Beta testing phase, so the likelihood of encountering several bugs is on the higher end; they need to be figured out.
  2. The project itself is “close-source,” – so there’s no way to contribute to its development as a community of developers or founders.
  3. It is not as commonly adopted as its other counterparts, so fewer resources are available to programmer users.
  4. It is not a sustainable approach to development.
  5. In fact, as a point of contact, there’s a Twitter thread by Tom Goldstein, an Associate Professor at Maryland who works on AI security & privacy, algorithmic bias, and foundations of ML, which goes to indicate how ChatGPT is not a sustainable product.

Wrapping Up

So, in all essentiality, the expert testing and insights from Fernando, the answers to our search query, and the various examples of chatbot testing on the internet today show us some benefits of using ChatGPT. However, no AI/ML tool can replace the wonders of a developer’s human mind and critical thinking abilities. As a Non-tech founder, there’s no need for you to continue worrying that ChatGPT can replace your existing batch of experienced developers.

As non-tech founders, are you looking to hire dedicated developers for your upcoming project?

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Summary

Name
Non-Tech Founders: Can ChatGPT (AI) Replace Your Team of Developers?
Author
Kanav Jain
Published on
February 15, 2023

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