Will AI Replace Web Development?

We are all in the midst of a frenzy. The recent surge in AI capabilities has forced everyone to consider the future of their profession. Does their job have a future? Or, will AI replace those jobs?

Web Developers are no different. The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) forces us to question how long our skills will remain valuable. One thing is certain. Web Development will never be the same. There is no closing the Pandora's Box of Artificial Intelligence. It is up to us to find our place in the world alongside AI.

In this article, I peak into the future of Web Development. I aim to understand AI's effect on Web Development. I will look into the past to see what happens to jobs following technological advances and look to the future to see whether Web Developers can co-exist with AI. This article will help us to understand more about AI and its relationship to Web Development now and in the future.

With that said, let's begin by looking into the past. We have seen many technological revolutions in history. Do such revolutions replace jobs? Let's find out.

In short, yes. Technological advancements replace jobs. Throughout history, humans have created technologies to replace themselves. Whenever we reach the limit of our human capability, we create technology to advance beyond it.

When we create these technologies, two main things happen. 

The first is the technology gets scaled for mass use. That means means becoming the average. The standard. The minimum expectation. When we go to supermarkets, we expect the fruit and vegetables to be of similar size, colour and quality. That is mass production. That is average production. Gone are the days when below-average had a place in the marketplace. The average and bad workers are eliminated and replaced by the new technology.

The second thing that happens is that a small group of people either continue to do things the old way or use the new technology better. They become the artisans, the master craftspeople, the boutiques. You don't see aristocrats buying their suits from Primark. They buy their suits from Saville Row tailors. Interior Designers don't use IKEA furniture. They use antiques and bespoke pieces to decorate rooms. So it is with the finest workers following a technological advance. They produce better results than mass production so are more valuable and sought after.

Technology replaces most jobs. For every job it replaces, it also creates a new one. For every blacksmith that shooed horses, there is now a car mechanic. Interestingly, technology also promotes the best people from the job it replaces. It replaces the average workers whilst increasing the value of the elite workers it can't replace.

As shoeing horses became less needed following the advent of the car. What tasks shall fall by the wayside in Web Development following the rise of AI?

What are the day-to-day tasks in Web Development? Writing code is the obvious one. There is also prototyping, writing documentation, bug fixing, testing and analytics, to name a few. All of these tasks AI can do much faster. These tasks will be replaced by AI.

Often, DIY Website Builders get touted as the main threat to Front-end Developers. They allow Web Designers and website owners to create websites without writing code. Already, I see tools like Wix and Elementor offering a chat interface to create new websites. The process of replacing Web Developers and Web Designers has begun. The classic version of our jobs is diminishing rapidly. The programming language on the rise is English (or whatever language you feed the LLM). The skills that gave web professionals value are becoming widely available to the general population. So, does that mean Web Development is dying?

I don't think so. I see this as a necessary evolution in Web Development. In the next section, I examine how AI might improve Web Development and bring about a new era of creativity and invention.

AI has already started taking over many of the "hard skills" involved in Web Development. Designing interfaces, writing code and producing documentation are all being outsourced to AI.

So, what's left for those still working in Web Development? For the time being, our jobs are safe. As the future marches towards us, that safety diminishes. I believe we now must turn to our "soft skills".

I have long believed that Web Development is about more than writing code. The value we truly offer is a solution-focused mind. We hardwire ourselves to solve problems. We are far better at that than AI will ever be. We give AI direction. Using our creativity, inventiveness and strategic thinking, we can harness AI to achieve great things.

As we outsource the time-consuming day-to-day tasks, we can focus on finding creative solutions to problems. AI can build those solutions faster than a team of Developers ever could. We can then iterate on those solutions quickly, leading to rapid advances in product quality and efficacy.

In my view, AI is not the end of Web Development. It removes the shackles of writing code. It frees us from operations and empowers us to focus on what we are best at - strategy and problem-solving.

AI offers an opportunity for Web Development to evolve. We no longer need to worry about writing efficient code and spending time on basic tasks. We can outsource all that.

The future of Web Development is solving problems and using AI to build and iterate on those solutions. The future of Web Development lies in strategic thinking, creativity and inventiveness. I expect a new era of creation and fast-paced problem-solving.