The Arrival of Artificial Intelligence
Machine learning is different. Now, instead of humans designing algorithms to be executed by a computer, the computer is designing the algorithms. It is still Artificial Narrow Intelligence — the computer is bound by the data and goal given to it by humans — but machine learning is, in my mind, meaningly different from what has come before. Just as Shannon fused the physical with the logical to make the computer, machine learning fuses the development of tools with computers themselves to make (narrow) artificial intelligence.
Like I was talking about in On Computing Tomorrow, the ability of computers to generate algorithms, or entire programs, is potentially fatal to a certain set of developers. I’m certain my role in DevOps is not immune. If you can ask a computer to look at a git repository and build the exact right environment to support that application, what need will there be for sysadmins or devops? Far less than what there is now. This train isn’t going to stop, and like all technology, we either need to get on board or get run over.