Coders are refusing to work without AI — and that could come back to bite them

But even he admits that, while Devin can work independently, he’d currently rate its skill between a junior and mid-level programmer, depending on the task. This is not a hand-it-off and forget it solution.

The SMU researchers suggest a more human approach. Programmers should know what tasks AI does and doesn’t do well as deeply as they know their favorite coding languages. They need strong quality assurance systems designed for AI and they are stuck with carefully reviewing the AI’s work as if it were a junior dev.

Meanwhile, the researchers say (and Wu agrees), humans should still be doing the big-picture work like software architecture and security design.