Is Coding Becoming Obsolete?

My 8-year-old has begun tinkering with the game creator Flowlab and Minecraft - grasping those basic programming concepts. However, that raised a question in my forward-looking parental mind: should generative AI also be part of his learning toolkit?

I contemplated whether AI was out to steal human coding jobs. I had an epiphany that it's not actually replacing coding (just yet anyway), but rather adapting it - by utilizing natural language, AI is similar to the emergence of new programming languages like Java or Python. So while AI may reshape how we communicate instructions to computers, it does not make the underlying coding principles obsolete.

So if AI is just a new way to give instructions, then the basics my kid is eagerly learning—like how algorithms and debugging work—will still be useful for directing technology in the future, with humans in charge instead of machines. I don’t know exactly what’s ahead 🤷‍♂️ , but I believe kids growing up coding will shape those innovations in the years to come.