Harvard Business Review's We're All Programmers Now explains that thanks generative AI (like ChatGPT), anyone can code.
Key quote from the article summary:
"Generative AI and other easy-to-use software tools can help employees with no coding background become adept programmers, or what the authors call citizen developers. By simply describing what they want in a prompt, citizen developers can collaborate with these tools to build entire applications—a process that until recently would have required advanced programming fluency."
The article focuses on what this means for corporations, their IT organizations and employees.
Freelancers are also becoming citizen developers. And based on the results of a recent survey we conducted, many are already using or experimenting with generative AI.
We're still working on our research project on the use of generative AI by freelancers, but several early findings jumped out at us:
- Freelancer awareness of these tools is quite high, with 88% of surveyed independent workers saying they have at least some awareness of generative AI.
- Close to half said they have at least experimented with ChatGPT or one of the other generative AI tools.
- About half of those who have used generative AI said it has been useful in their work.
Given the most common platform for generative AI - ChatGPT - has been available for less than a year, it's clear generative AI usage by freelancers is growing rapidly.
And usage will continue to grow, especially since most software vendors are feverishly working on adding generative AI to their programs. Examples include everything from specialized plug-ins for ChatGPT to Microsoft adding generative AI capabilities to Word, Excel, and their other Office products.
Harvard Business Review has another article on what the growing use of AI means. The title is AI Won't Replace Humans — But Humans With AI Will Replace Humans Without AI.
We think the path forward for freelancers is clear. Learn how to use generative AI to increase your productivity and add value for your clients or risk replacement by freelancers who do.
We'll have more on our generative AI and freelancers research project in the near future.
