Created: 2023-04-14 09:26
In the last few years there have been different trends to make programming more inclusive. Which is great, different people bring different perspectives and the community as a whole is enriched. And from the individual’s perspective, everybody should have the right to pursue a career (or hobby) of their linking.
Some of those that champion such ideas also make the case that “everybody can become a programmer”. That is why the following quote by Hamming caught my attention.
This is the type of Al that I am interested in—what can the human and machine do together, and not in the competition which can arise. Of course robots will displace many humans doing routine jobs. In a very real sense, machines can best do routine jobs, thus freeing humans for more humane jobs. Unfortunately, many humans at present are not equipped to compete with machines they are unable to do much more than routine jobs. There is a widespread belief (hope?) that humans can compete, once they are given proper training. However, I have long publicly doubted you could take many coal miners and make them into useful programmers. I have my reservations on the fraction of the human population that can be made into programmers in the classical sense; if you call getting money from a bank dispensing machine programming, or the dialing of a telephone number (both of which apply the human input to an elaborate program which is then executed, much like an interpreter acts on your program input), then of course most people can be made into programmers. But if you mean the more classical activity of careful analysis of a situation and then the detailed specification as to what is to be done, then I say there are doubts as to what fraction of the population can compete with computers, even with nice interactive prompting menus. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn p. 94