This week saw demos from a Peter Thiel backed startup called Cognition AI. The company is run by several noted medal winning coders, who have been training AI to perform complex real world programming tasks. They call their automated ‘software engineer’ Devin, and it can build and debug a whole application from a single prompt. The system has 4 main components; a familiar chat window, plus a command window, a code editor and a browser. One of the demos shows Devin working out how to train its own AI models… this is a glimpse into a world where AI systems can build software on-demand and improve or extend themselves. In the more immediate term, Devin, like systems from MultiOn, Magic.ai, Rabbit and others show that LLMs are becoming smart enough to use the browser and other tools to effectively coordinate and execute actions beyond just generating content and images. Say hello to ‘action models’.
Takeaways: Software development is ahead of most other job sectors in adopting AI. As such its a window on the future AI disruption in ‘high-cognition’ jobs such as financial analysis, scientific research, healthcare, legal services and education. Across these domains we will also start to see technological job displacement and occupational polarization. As AI is adopted, a growing polarisation or divide develops between high-skill roles versus low-skill roles ((in the case of software it will be advanced AI development or strategic innovation versus basic documenting processes or data gathering and labelling), while middle-skill roles rapidly diminish. AI job displacement across these domains will trigger new dynamics in workforce demand, economic opportunity, social and political dimensions, but also increase the power malicious actors can wield.