The Future of Code

With computers coding themselves, do humans even matter?

What is the scariest movie you have ever seen? For me, it’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Maybe it does not have the gore factor or terror including chills, but HAL9000 is right up there with Alien, Predator, and Snakes on a Plane* for most terrifying villain of all-time:

“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”

With every other villain, you are dealing with the irrational. HAL on the other hand is polite, rational, soothing and a 100% certified sinister serial killing computer. What makes HAL even more threatening to us however is the idea of our creations turning the tables us.

We are still well behind an intelligence such as HAL coming into existence. The pace of software development in this decade however may mean we have to reckon with the future sooner than we are prepared for. What happens once we step into the 2020’s?

A few of weeks ago I spoke on a panel called the “Future of Work” at Innovfest Unbound. Most of these talks tend to devolve into debates on whether humanity is going to be made redundant by the advance of machines. Luckily we avoided much of the doom and gloom and discussed more practical considerations of workforce management, upskilling, and the growth in entrepreneurship and freelancing…