Today's Special Issue: The developer community has been abuzz after OpenAI's new text-generating neural network model, GPT-3, managed to generate code with just a description. In today's issue, we explore what all the fuss is about, and ask the question all web developers are secretly wondering: will GPT-3 really render human developers obsolete soon? Read the issue, and hit reply to tell me your thoughts.

GPT-3 In A Nutshell: 

So what is GPT-3, and why is everybody losing their minds over it?

GPT-3 is an artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI's latest AI language model. With 175 billion parameters, it's considered the most powerful one ever built, far greater than its predecessor, 2019's GPT-2 model, which had 1.5 billion parameters. Last week, OpenAI gave some people public access to GPT-3 last through an API after releasing research on it in May, inspiring many to share text-generations they are creating using the model across social media.

What GPT-3 Can Do:

You literally just need to describe the kind of layout you want, and the code for it will be generated. PayPal software engineer Harland Duman was also able to use GPT-3 to generate CSS with descriptions without providing examples.

Greenhouse and Vectordash founder Sharif Shameem's tool (to try it out for yourself, sign up here) using GPT-3 also generates code in JSX (XML/HTML-like syntax), and is capable of doing so in HTML/CSS as well. "If I wanted it to write output plain HTML/CSS instead of JSX, all I would have to do would be to re-write my 2 initial samples in HTML/CSS. Then all of GPT-3's outputs would be in plain HTML/CSS," said Shameem. 

Shameem's experiments in particular have attracted attention. He continues to tinkers with other ways he could use GPT-3 to generate code with just a description. In roughly the past week alone, he has been able to use GPT-3 to produce code for:

• A basic React app – a simple to-do list.
• A recreation of Google's home page
• A React dice component

But Shameem and Duman are not the only ones whose experiments showcase what GPT-3 can do. Here are a few other notable examples from others:

• A fully functioning search engine that returns the exact answer and the corresponding URL for any query.
• One individual built a Figma plugin to design for you
• It can  'auto-complete' an empty image by suggesting what pixels should be in it.
• It can generate data for autocomplete spreadsheets. Given how many no-code tools use spreadsheets as APIs, this makes it even faster to create an app without code.

How GPT-3 Works:

After inputting text, the model predicts what the input following it should be well because its "memory" contains all text ever published by humans on the internet. As GPT-3 was trained on a dataset of half a trillion words – an archive of the internet called the Common Crawl – the model can also identify linguistic patterns within the text and more, allowing it to understand more nuanced human text.

The Response:

Naturally, the internet has more or less lost its mind over the new tech, which some claim also shows some self-awareness.

Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch says it represents “general intelligence” "and "a building block for a new category of apps," adding that it feels like “Google as an API.” 

While many are excited by the possibilities it creates, some developers are nervously wondering if this will render their jobs obsolete. As Analytics India Magazine reports, software development is one of the career paths GPT-3 most threatens. Indian entrepreneur Vijay Anands, the founder of Proto.in - India's biggest startup showcase platform – tweeted the tool represents the "Next level of #nocode" – a movement that already is worrying developers and threatens to change the field.

While it certainly does represent "the next level" of the no-code movement, are developer jobs now really as in jeopardy as some now think because of GPT-3?

The answer: It's complicated. 

Weaknesses: 

While impressive, GPT-3, however, comes with its limitations that need to be addressed before we can answer whether or not developer jobs are threatened by the AI. 

Read more by starting your free 14-day trial of Inside Dev Premium today.

In Conclusion: So Is It As Disruptive As Everybody Says? 

Find out the answer when you start your free 14-day trial of Inside Dev Premium today!

⚡ Quick Hits:

• Microsoft released Build JavaScript applications with Node.js learning tutorials.
• TC39 has advanced the Records and Tuples value types proposal to stage 2.
• Google Fonts now offers Recursive, a free variable font for code and UI.
• Microsoft Azure’s revenue was up 47%, but the growth rate has been consistently slowing down over the last four quarters, Microsoft's recently released quarterly report reveals. Read more in Inside Business.
• Check out React Guitar, a guitar component for React.
• Most security companies send a technician to your home. SimpliSafe doesn’t. Order online. Set it up in 30 minutes. After that, you’re protected 24/7.

*This is a sponsored post