This chapter covers
- How AI assistants change how new programmers learn
- Why programming is never going to be the same
- How AI assistants such as GitHub Copilot work
- Possible perils of AI-assisted programming
Computer programming has long been the domain of professionals with special training and advanced skills. After all, you want the applications running your bank, phone, car, and so on to work exactly right every time! Just as room-sized computers with stacks of paper cards and miles of magnetic tape have been replaced by modern devices, programming languages and tools have also become easier to use. And now, artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT put computer programming within the reach of almost everyone. We want to help open this door for you!
Learn how to program, and you’ll be able to take on new tasks at work, create your own computer games, and put the computer to work for you at your job. In this book, we’ll show you how to write your own computer programs using ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot. Along the way, you’ll learn some skills in Python, one of the most popular programming languages.
1.1 Improving how we talk to computers
Let’s start by asking a computer to count from 0 to 9. Decades ago, a book about programming would have asked you to learn how to read and understand the following code (based on https://mng.bz/EOdO):