City Planning

Wednesday 3 January 2018 at 08:00 GMT

I believe, like all jobs, programming will be fully automated. The question isn't "if", but "when". I believe in specialised AI for this role, not general-purpose AI, because most software problems are caused by incomplete understanding, and only a machine that can fully understand the technical landscape of a given piece of software will be able to meaningfully improve it.

Working with software can be likened to exploring a city. Those of us who have been working on a product for a long time know its twists and turns, we know when the trains are busy or when to avoid certain streets. Those who are new to it aren't so lucky. But even the senior developers on a product get confused, disoriented and lost.

This is where machines come in. Imagine a machine that knows everything that happens in your city, every minute of every day. It will know, better than anyone, how to re-route traffic, which office buildings need to be torn down, and where new roads and paths need to be built. It can contain the entirety of the knowledge required to build a better city in its head, in a way no human ever could.

In the short term, we're working on GPS. Tools to help humans navigate this city. But we won't forget the long-term goal: a city that manages itself.

We're doing this at Prodo.AI. Come and join us.