Coding with AI For Dummies

Introduction

I started writing this book almost a year after OpenAI launched ChatGPT. That launch and the subsequent releases of generative AI tools by Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others have begun to change how we think about creating content. At the same time, we're facing important questions about what the future of work will look like — especially for those of us whose job primarily involves the things that tools such as ChatGPT are pretty good at.

My own feelings about generative AI are mixed. On one hand, I worry that the skills in writing and programming that I've spent more than half my life working on will no longer be useful. On the other hand, I see that AI has the potential to take on some of the most boring and least rewarding work I do, saving me time and effort that I can devote to the more creative parts of writing and programming.

I also worry that when I do write things using old-fashioned methods (aka “I think of them and write them”), people will assume that I used AI. This happened with a book I wrote last year on a relatively current topic. People who didn't bother to read the book commented that “it was probably written by AI.” As a result of this experience, I announced that I'd livestream the process of writing my next book. I had no idea at the time that my next book would be about AI. So, here I am, writing a book about coding with AI while live-streaming my writing processes in an attempt to prove to future readers that the book wasn't generated ...