Survey reveals how artificial intelligence is impacting developers across the tech landscape

The hype around artificial intelligence has reached fever pitch. It has captured the imagination – and stoked the fears – of the wider public, reaching beyond computer science departments and research institutions.

But when artificial intelligence dominates the international conversation, it’s easy to forget that it’s not simply a thing that exists and develops itself. However intelligent machines are, and however adept they are at ‘learning’, it’s essential to remember they are things that are engineered – things that are built by developers.

That’s the thinking behind this year’s AI Now survey. To capture the experiences and perspectives of developers and to better understand the impact of artificial intelligence on their work and lives.

Key findings from Packt’s artificial intelligence survey

Launched in August, and receiving 2,869 responses from developers working in every area, from cloud to cybersecurity, the survey had some interesting findings.

These include…

• 69% of developers aren’t currently using AI enabling tools in their day to day role. But 75% of respondents said they were planning on learning AI enabling software in the next 12 months.
• TensorFlow is the tool defining AI development – 27% of respondents listed it as their top tool in their to-learn list.
• 75% of developers believe automation will have either a positive or significant positive impact on their career.
• 47% of respondents believe AGI will be a reality within the next 30 years
  The biggest challenges for developers in terms of AI are having the time to learn new skills and knowing which frameworks and tools to learn
• Internal data literacy is the biggest challenge for AI implementation

As well as as quantitative results, the survey also produced  qualitative insights from developers. This provided some useful and unique perspectives on artificial intelligence.

One developer, talking about bias in AI, said that:

“As a CompSci/IT professional I understand this is a more subtle manifestation of ‘Garbage In/Garbage Out”. As an African American, I have significant concerns about say, well documented bias in say criminal sentencing being legitimized because ‘the algorithm said so’.”

To read the report click here.

To coincide with the release of survey results Packt is also running a $10 sale on all eBooks and videos across their website throughout September.

Visit the Packt eCommerce store to start exploring.