Beyond the Hype: What AI Really Did to Software Engineering (Keynote)

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is likely the largest disruptor to the discipline of software engineering since third and fourth generation languages arrived and we have all heard the stories of its impact. Productivity increases of more than 100x, faster delivery and reduced workforces, but also drops in quality, shifts in cognitive load and unpredictable costs and benefits. While the impact of AI has been profound, these stories rarely translate one-to-one into the daily practice experienced across industry. The devil, as always, is in the details, and in many cases there is much more at play than a new AI tool assisting with a well-understood engineering activity; it sits within a much wider software development lifecycle. In this talk we will examine what professional life has been like for developers and organisations and how development has changed since the large-scale introduction of generative AI towards the end of 2022. We will examine scenarios ranging from initial adoption of coding assistants, to understanding their impact and getting company-wide buy-in, to supporting company-wide workflows using AI. As we go along, we will discuss what worked well, where we face fundamental challenges and where deeper research is needed to allow AI to reach its maximum potential for the software engineering discipline. As a final outcome we will identify opportunities and needs, as well as foundational questions that academia and industry will need to address moving forward. Some of these will be urgent, such as providing deeper understanding of the quality and cost trade-offs for AI-enabled software systems. Others will require longer-form research and insight, such as how our views of technical and cognitive debt will change, and what the security implications are when we deploy our software systems in a world where bad actors have access to highly capable generative AI. The software engineering world is changing under our feet, so let us explore how to move with the times.