Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword; it's becoming an integral part of the software development process.
Abstract
Artificial intelligence is changing how software is made, affecting everything from design to maintenance. This change greatly improves how quickly and efficiently developers can create code. Tools like ChatGPT, for general uses, and GitHub Copilot, for making software, give programmers new tools that make their work easier. However, using these technologies also brings challenges with systems, safety, and ethics. These issues need careful oversight and evaluation, as well as regulations by developers, companies, and governments.
The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has inaugurated a new era in the technological world, bringing with it profound transformations in the design, development, testing, and maintenance of computer systems. This article will explore key milestones in the
evolution of AI, address its ethical dilemmas, and examine the challenges it will face in the future. Once perceived as a technology with no future, AI failed to capture the public's attention, even when Deeper Blue, an IBM machine, defeated Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, in May 1997, or when AlphaGo of Google beat the world champion in the game of Go. However, with the arrival of generative AI, this technological revolution has experienced an unprecedented boom in less than five years since the launch of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Today, major technology companies are in fierce competition to secure a leading position in this revolution.
AI throughout the software development process
Artificial intelligence has become a fundamental pillar in every stage of software development, ranging from initial idea generation to development, debugging, testing, implementation, and maintenance. This integration of AI has not only revolutionized efficiency in the development process but has also redefined the tools available to developers.
According to a survey conducted by GitHub about its GitHub Copilot tool, developers who used it completed their tasks 55% faster compared to those who did not use it. Additionally, an increase in job satisfaction was highlighted, with 60-75% of users expressing greater satisfaction in their work. This is, in part, because the tool contributes to less mental load while performing repetitive tasks, with an impressive 87% of users reporting this benefit.
The influence of AI extends across all technological fields, instigating the creation, modification, and elimination of roles within the industry. This has increased the demand for professionals in areas such as data analysis, software development, and cybersecurity analysis. Adapting to this new paradigm requires continuous training of employees to master this new set of tools at their disposal. Likewise, businesses are required to make significant investments to stay competitive and capitalize on the extensive benefits that artificial intelligence has to offer.
Data use, security, and risks.
Artificial intelligence, like many technologies in their early stage, is not free of errors; ChatGPT itself says so:
The answers provided by generative artificial intelligence are not always accurate. Sometimes, they can lean more toward the hallucinatory than the factual, as stated in an IBM article. These errors can be due to a variety of factors, including insufficient training data, incorrect assumptions made by the model, or biases in the data used to train the model. This unexpected behavior is especially worrying in the fields of medicine, financial trading, or software development, areas in which a correct decision is essential, and these types of errors can lead to serious problems.
A study from the University of Stanford revealed that those developers who employed an AI assistant, specifically based on OpenAI's Codex-Davinci-002 model, tended to write less secure code compared to those who did not use such an assistant. Interestingly, participants who used AI for code generation perceived their code to be more robust and contain fewer bugs than it probably did.
Data confidentiality and privacy represent another significant challenge. By granting access to our codes to a programming assistant, we potentially expose information that could be considered a trade secret. This is due to uncertainty about who else could access this data from the other side of the connection and the possible future uses of that information.
Furthermore, the emergence of new AI tools inevitably attracts the attention of malicious hackers, who may seek to exploit these technologies for negative purposes. This was demonstrated by Aaron Mulgrew, a cybersecurity researcher from the United Kingdom, who managed to create a functional virus undetectable by 90% of existing antivirus programs without writing a single line of code, using only the assistance of ChatGPT.
These situations underscore the need for careful and continued consideration of how AI capabilities are used and managed, especially in sensitive fields such as software development and cybersecurity.
What awaits us in the future:
The truth is that artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, and there is no way to stop the train; although most people can buy a ticket, the owners of the train are the only ones who know the destination. Launching an AI model to be prominent in the market is a costly task, and only large tech companies, such as Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, and Antropic, among others with large amounts of money, can afford to invest billions of dollars in training a new model.
Furthermore, deep learning and neural networks continue to be a “Black Box” in which their developers are not 100% sure how their machine learning models are able to explain what happens within their own models. On the other hand, governments do not always have the capacity to adapt and respond so quickly to how technology advances, leaving room for security gaps, improper manipulation of data, or simply the lack of efficient regulation that ensures that organizations comply with all regulations imposed by the government.
Conclusion
AI is radically changing all productive sectors, but adapting to this new paradigm is a great challenge for the technological area. Software engineers must learn and master this tool to increase their productivity, but this transformation is not without challenges, including the generation of less secure code or concerns about data privacy and security. The development of generative AIs has aroused much optimism in the technological community, which welcomes the new possibilities of the technological field. However, there is also caution and the need for deep reflection on how we should use and adapt to these advances, which far exceed the expectations raised.
The rapid advancement and widespread application of artificial intelligence in numerous sectors emphasizes the urgent need for in-depth research and analysis in several critical areas to harness this potential responsibly and effectively in the future. These areas include the ethical development and use of AI, mitigating bias, improving the explainability of AI, and ensuring the security and privacy of AI systems. Addressing these challenges will not only promote more conscious and safe innovation but will also ensure that the benefits of artificial intelligence are distributed fairly and equitably across society.
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