After ChatGPT made waves around the world for its surprising generative AI capabilities, an American company called Cognition has announced the launch of a new AI tool called Devin that it claims is the world’s first fully autonomous AI software engineer that can write command-line code. This has raised fears among the software community about its possible impact on technology businesses.
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What is Devin and what does he do
According to Cognition, Devin is a tireless, skilled teammate, equally willing to build alongside you or independently complete the tasks you review. With Devin, engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can pursue more ambitious goals.
Devin can plan and execute complex engineering tasks that require thousands of decisions. It can recall the relevant context at every step, learn and correct mistakes over time.
Cognition equipped Devin with common development tools including a shell, code editor, and browser inside a sandboxed computing environment — everything a human would need to get the job done. Devin has the possibility of active cooperation with the user. It reports its progress in real time, accepts feedback and works together with the user through design choices as needed. Devin can learn how to use unknown technologies; creation and implementation of end-to-end applications; autonomously find and correct errors in code bases; and train and fine-tune your own AI models.
Devin solves 13.86% of end-to-end problems correctly, far surpassing the previous state of 1.96%. Even when the correct files to edit are obtained, the best prior models can only solve 4.80% of the problems. Cognition tried to get Devin real jobs on Upwork, and he was able to get them. Devin AI is currently in beta testing and is available to select users with limited access and that too on demand. You can request Dev’s AI access by filling out the form available on their official website.How will Devin impact the software business?
Devin’s abilities have raised concerns about his influence on software businesses. Will it prove to be a job killer as AI is seen a lot or a boon for techies who will benefit from it? Cognition presents Devin as a smart assistant that makes software engineers’ jobs easier, allowing them to focus on higher-level skills.
Generative AI tools like GitHub Copilot have started influencing software programming, but Cognition’s Devin has taken this to the next level, Jaspreet Bindra, MD, told TOI. and founder of The Tech Whisperer. “It has seemingly revolutionary capabilities in transforming software development. It can independently manage some development projects, from writing code to debugging and completing tasks, thus emulating a full-fledged AI worker and not just a coding assistant,” he said.
His reported performance in software engineering, Jaspreet says, is significant because he can quickly learn and use new technologies, build applications from scratch, identify and fix bugs, contribute to a production repository, and autonomously train AI models. “This ability to solve complexities creates nervousness and excitement among the fraternity,” he says.
However, Devina is seen more as a helper than a competitor. Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founder of Scaler & InterviewBit, told TOI that software engineers need to see these tools as enablers and quickly build expertise in using them effectively instead of seeing them as competition. “It will most likely be a helper developer, and it can also allow a lot of non-technical people to easily build apps,” he says.
Coding, Devin’s core skill, is only one part of software development and therefore cannot replace software engineers. Heena Kothari, senior director of engineering and product development at Exotel, told TOI that Devin represents a major shift in the way software is built and software development is no longer just about writing code or testing it. “While coding is important, there’s a lot more to it, like planning how the software will work, making sure it fits with other software, and understanding how it’s used in different ways.”
Heena says that for large enterprise software, coding is only 40% of the entire software development process. “The rest involves designing the software, making it work with other software, and understanding how people will use it. That’s why Devin could be very helpful for simpler or moderately complex software projects. This could allow engineers to focus on solving bigger problems instead of spending too much time on routine tasks.”
Despite his incredible abilities, Devin may not pose any threat to techies at the moment, but the development of generative AI will remain a cause for concern in terms of employment in various sectors, even though AI has actually led to the creation of more jobs. Research published by the European Central Bank, cited earlier in this article, contrasts with previous technology waves, when computerization reduced the relative employment share of middle-skilled workers. In a sample of 16 European countries, the share of employment in sectors exposed to artificial intelligence increased, with low- and medium-skilled jobs largely unaffected and high-skilled jobs receiving the biggest boost, according to a research bulletin published by the ECB.
However, the research says, these results do not mean an acquittal. “Artificial intelligence-enabled technologies continue to evolve and be adopted. The bulk of their impact on employment and wages – and therefore on growth and equality – remains to be seen.”
(With inputs from TOI)