Can Web Development be Automated in the Future?

The achievements of Artificial intelligence are getting more impressive every day and we are already seeing that it is here to assist us in the form of Siri, google assistant or Cortana. We are also seeing that it is also doing more than assisting us, it is taking jobs of many people by automating their jobs and now we are seeing that it is also starting to write code.

Many people ask us that Can Web Development be Automated in the Future? And there is no simple answer to the question but let us explain. It is true that AI has started to write code and show some development in this area but it is also true that it is in the starting phase. It is also safe to assume that AI will take a long time to be smart enough to write the right code for websites. It is a possibility that AI might be able to write code for a static website which doesn’t involve much functionality but still it will take a long time before AI learns how to interpret the design need for each website and advise the clients what to develop first.

In this guide, we will address the question if Web Development can be Automated in the Future, we will share what is the current situation of the web development field in term of automation and we will also tell you if a robot can create an advanced application from scratch. Let’s get to it.

Automation of Jobs

Automation of human work has been going on for years and we have seen that many industries are working to automate their workflow as it not only makes it more cost effective but it also makes their work error-free as robots do their work with perfection.

In this section, we will look at how AI has automated jobs in the last few years and we will share some examples from different fields.

Automation in Medical Field

Medical Field is a complex field and it needs to spend countless hours to become an expert in the medical field. However, we are seeing that AI is already showing a lot of progress in this field.

In 2013, we saw the power of AI when we put it to test to detect breast cancer. For this purpose, we trained the neural network to detect the sign of cancer by using the thousands of mammographic pictures of cancer. In this process, the neural network made a medical discovery that it was not important to look for tumors but to look for other modification of the tissue.

AI is also automating the other parts of the medical field, there is a robot named “DaVinci” which has been around for years and it has improved a lot over the years. This robot will help the surgeons to do very sensitive surgeries with accuracy and in this youtube video, you can see how the robot works.

The major highlight of this robot is its precision, it can get the things done with few tiny incision which means that there is less bleeding, faster healing time and also reduce the risk of infection.

Automation of Art

When it comes to Art, we also see some progress of AI in this field. The first example is Magenta which is a project of Google Brain Team and they are working to make compelling music using the machine learning.

For this purpose, the team using TensorFlow which is a machine learning library, they were able to generate Magenta’s first computer-generated song and the interesting part is that it is generated without any human Assistance. After listening to the song we can say that it is not as good enough as other songs, but it is a pretty good effort.

In 2016, Google sold 29 paintings which were made by Google AI. The company sold these paintings in a charity auction and named the event “DeepDream: The art of neural networks”. According to Wall Street Journal, Google was able to sell these painting for more than $8000.

AI is writing Code

The first successful attempt made in this regard was in 2015 when Andrej Karpathy was able to generate code using Recurrent Neural Networks. He did this by combining the whole Linux repository including source files and header files and trained the Recurrent Neural network to generate code and at the end, RNN was able to write pretty good code.

The AI also made mistakes like some variable declaration and use but Karpathy was satisfied with the overall result. You can check the whole code generate by RNN.

DeepCoder is another AI which is developed by the combined effort of Microsoft and Cambridge University. DeepCoder AI has the ability to learn and write a working code after learning a huge code database. DeepCoder is still developing and teams are working on it to make it better. It is expected that DeepCoder will participate in the programming competitions in the future.

Should Web Developers fear to lose their jobs?

The simple answer to this question is, NO, the developer should not fear to lose their jobs because it will take a long time for AI to replace the web developers.

Let us explain.

When we develop a website we obviously take a lot of things in consideration, but when it comes to AI, we teach a lot of generic rules to it which allow it work properly and AI work within those rules.

When it comes to human web developers we know that when to follow the rules and when to exactly the rules to develop a unique website design but the AI obviously lack this ability to think out of the box.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has many applications which can help humans in a lot of ways, and it will help the tasks much easier and simpler. If you look at the applications of Artificial Intelligence we notice that AI is being used in almost every sector in different Capacities.

For example, if we take a look at smartphones, we notice that many companies are using AI in their new smartphones. Apple new iPhones have dedicated Neural Engine which not only helps users to unlock iPhone faster but it also helps the complete processes much faster.

Companies like Google also use AI in their flagship Pixel lineup where they can produce the top quality images with the help of a single camera where other smartphone uses 3 camera setups to produce such images.

Similarly, AI is being used in other sectors like where companies like NEST using AI in their products to make our homes Smart. We are also seeing that AI chatbots have replaced the humans as customer service representatives and many companies use Chatbots for their Customer services.

Companies like Uber are spending millions of Dollars to test their self-driving cars as they believe that self-driving cars are the future and they are already training their self-driving cars on the roads of many states of US.

However, if we look at the last few decades, we have seen that the people were still losing jobs when technology was advancing, there used to be dozens of people at the car assembly lineup but now there are only a few people needed with robots to assemble the cars.

Why is development different? What is so advanced about development when compared to the other technologies which are being automated?

When it comes to website development it is much more different than other jobs which are being automated by the AI.

Web development is a complex process, it is possible that AI will be improved and may be able to write much better code than a website developer, but it is also true that AI doesn’t have the ability to think out of the box where humans have this ability, and this allows them to think of creative ideas and develop unique website design.

It is true that we may train the AI to develop static websites which doesn’t have much functionality but still, AI will need some human supervision to create these websites without any errors.

However, when it comes to dynamic websites, AI is far away from that point where it will be able to understand the needs of the client and think like human beings.

There are some areas where AI can surely help the programmers by simplifying the process of web development. For example, if we are writing code for a complex process it is a possibility that there is a library available for that process and we can save a lot of time by using that Library.

AI assistant can recommend that library to us by searching the different forums. AI can help us in the SEO process and web developer uses a number of tools for SEO.

Alternatively, we can use the power of AI and use it point out the bad content from an SEO perspective and in this way can get much better SEO for our content and design.

Are there any tools or products which are automating web development today?

Yes, there are many platforms available which are simplifying the whole process of web development to some extent but still, they are not good enough.

For example, WordPress is a popular platform which allows its users to develop the websites without coding and users can build their own websites using the themes and plugins.

WordPress is undoubtedly very useful platform but it lacks when it comes to the customization, the platform uses the PHP language and if you want to develop the custom WordPress plugin or theme for your website you will still need to hire a WordPress developer to do it.

Another popular platform is Wix which is a free website builder and it has more than 100 million users around the world. The website allows you to create a good website for you using drag and drop feature but still, when it comes to the customization you have limited option and you will have to use the Wix Code for adding advanced functionalities to your website.

Similarly, Website developers around the world use Automation software to test their websites. There are platforms like Selenium which are very popular among web developer as it allows them to test the UI of Web Applications. It also supports many popular languages like Java, Groovy, Python, PHP, and Perl. There are other automation tools available such as Katalon Studio which supports Java/Groovy and Unified Functional Testing software which supports VBScript.

Web Developers also prefer languages like JavaScript and Python which has tons of frameworks which makes web development much easier. If you are interested in learning whether JavaScript will be replaced in the future or not, then click here.

Can a robot create an advanced application from scratch?

No, it is not possible in the current scenario as AI is not advanced enough to do it. If we take a look at the AI, we see that its functionality depends on the set of rules which we define and even if we use machine learning its functionality will depend on the quality of the data set.

So in the current scenario, it is impossible for a robot to create an advanced application from scratch as it will need much more training to do so and in the current capacity it will take years for a robot to get this ability. Even in the future, AI will still need a human input at some level for creating an advanced application.

Conclusion

AI has come a long way since its inception and it is advancing at a great pace and it is safe to assume that it will have a crucial role in the programming industry at some point in the future, but it is also true that it will require a long time to be in that position.

AI has a lot of potentials and it has the ability to serve web developers in different capacities. Let us know what you think about it in the comment section below.