Should You Learn Coding Now? Anthropic CEO Explains

A bunch of people at Enthropic write code and so you know we made this internal tool called claude code and because we ourselves write code we have you know I think a special and unique

insight into you know how to use the how to best use the AI models to write code.

Um so you know I think I think I think in the code space you know we've we've become very strong very strong competitors.

>> What industry do you think will get disrupted and what has a certain runway left? I'm asking from the lens of I'm

left? I'm asking from the lens of I'm trying to figure out what book to read, which college to go to, what skill set

to learn. Uh if I'm starting a startup

to learn. Uh if I'm starting a startup today, uh what has some kind of a tailwind >> for a short period of time is okay as well. But what

well. But what >> I mean, you know, I would I would think about tasks that are human- centered. um

uh you know tasks that involve relating to people you know I you know I think that the stuff like code and software engineering is you know is becoming more and more kind of AI AI focused you know

things like math and science >> is that coding or engineering if I were to segregate coding and engineering to be two completely different things >> is coding go going away or is

engineering element of software where you're an architect trying to figure out >> I think coding is going away first or coding is being you know done by the AI models first and then the broader task

of software engineering will take longer but I think that is you know that doing that end to end I think that is going to happen as well I would say um but you know again the elements of like you know

design or making something that's useful to users or knowing what the demand is or you know managing teams of like AI models like you know those things uh uh

may still be present again like there's this comparative advantage is surprising ly powerful, right? Even if you're only doing like, you know, 5% of the task, like, you know, that 5% gets super

amplified and levered because it's like you're only doing 5% of the task, the AI does the other 95% and so you become, you know, 20 20 times more productive.

Again, at some point, you get to 99% 99 and then it becomes harder. But, um, I think there's there's surprisingly much in that in that sort of um, you know, in that zone of comparative advantage. But

I would really think about the thing the things that are human- centered. Like I

I think there's I think there's something to that. I think there's something to kind of the physical world or or things that mix together human-

centered the physical world. One of

those two and analytical skills that somehow tie them together, you know, sim similar to the radiologist example I gave.

>> So what would I study? Say I'm actual use case. I'm 25 years old. I'm trying

use case. I'm 25 years old. I'm trying

to pick a profession for myself. I want

some kind of tailwind. My outcome is a capitalistic win in the next decade.

What industry would I pick outside of something which has a physical interface?

>> Yeah. again anything where you're building on AI like if AI is the tailwind you know if you can be part of some other other part of the supply chain you know something in the semiconductor space which you know I

think is you know that's one example you know there has an element of kind of you know physical world and more traditional engineering not not software engineering um you know again the the very kind of

human- centered professions like you know that is that is something I would I would think in terms of and I think the other thing I always say is like in in the world in which you know AI can kind

of generate anything and and you know create anything having basic critical thinking skills may be the most important thing to to success. I I worry about you know these AI models that that

generate images and videos and we don't make you know models that generate images and videos and for many reasons but you know this is one of them. Um

it's really hard to tell what's real from what's not. Um and and so you know a significant part of success may be having the street smarts you know not to get not to get fooled by by you know I

mean hopefully we can crack down on and and regulate some of some of some of this fake content but but you know assume we can't um you know critical thinking skills are going to be really important and you know you don't want to

fall for things that are that are that are fake. You don't want to have false

are fake. You don't want to have false beliefs. You don't want to get scammed

beliefs. You don't want to get scammed like you know that's that's really advice that I would give to someone.

>> If every innovation in the history of humanity killed a core human skills I I'll give you an example. If calculators

killed our ability to do arithmetic, if uh writing reduced the memory of human beings per se, what muscle is AI killing?

>> So, you know, first of all, I'm I'm I'm not I'm not so sure like, you know, I I still have I still do math in my head quite a lot. I still find it useful to do math in my head e you know even even

without a calculator just because it's like you know it's more integrated into my thought processes right you know I you know you know I might want to say oh yeah you know if like each user paid this amount then you know then the

revenue would be that you know I want to be able to close that loop in my head without having to you know without having to to give the answer to a calculator so I think a lot of these

skills are still pretty relevant um but you know I I would say that if you don't use things carefully that you can lose you can lose important skills. Um uh and

you know we you know I think we started to see it with you know students where you know it's like you know they have the AI like write the essay for it's basically just cheating on homework so you know we shouldn't do that. You know,

we did some studies around code and showed that, you know, depending on how you use the model, you know, we we can see deskilling in terms of writing code, right? There are different ways to use

right? There are different ways to use the model and some of them don't cause deskkilling and some of them do. But,

you know, definitely if folks are not thoughtful in how they use things, then then deskkilling absolutely can happen.

>> Do you think humans will become stupider as a race in the next decade? Because if

we are in a way exporting thinking and cognition to systems. >> Yeah. I I think if we deploy again it's

>> Yeah. I I think if we deploy again it's the machines of loving grace and adolescence of technology. I think if we deploy AI in the wrong way, if we deploy

it carelessly, then yes, people could become stupider. Even if an AI is always

become stupider. Even if an AI is always going to be better than you at some thing, you can still learn that thing, right? You can still enrich yourself

right? You can still enrich yourself intellectually. And so that's that's a

intellectually. And so that's that's a choice we have to make as as individual companies, as individual people, and as society overall.

>> When I tried to use Claude code for the first time, I did struggle to get it to work. It was for somebody who's very

work. It was for somebody who's very stupid and has no coding or programming knowledge. It's not uh it's not very

knowledge. It's not uh it's not very very easy. I think there's a learning

very easy. I think there's a learning curve. I heard someone say it well. It's

curve. I heard someone say it well. It's

like even prompt engineering is like playing a piano. you can't sit and start playing it. To my audience, I think it

playing it. To my audience, I think it becomes increasingly relevant where to learn, how to set context, uh how to prompt, how to use cloud code better for

somebody like me who comes with zero knowledge. Uh can you recommend how one

knowledge. Uh can you recommend how one does that?

>> Yeah, I mean first of all I would say you know we're trying in we're trying increasingly to kind of like make that learning curve easier. So like one of the things that caused us to release cla

um which is basically claude code for non-coders is you know oh man you know like we were noticing a bunch of non-technical people who really wanted to use claude code and we're struggling

through the command line terminal um to do that which you know it's like like coders use the command line terminal all the time but like non-coders you know it's just kind of like makes things unnecessarily complicated. Um so you

unnecessarily complicated. Um so you know co-work was designed to be more of a you know the you know the the kind of you know it was powered by by the cloud code engine on the back but you know the

idea was to kind of make it um you know more um u more like user friendly and and like easier to use. So, you know, we're we're definitely trying to introduce interfaces that kind of make

it make it easier. But I, you know, I would also say, you know, that there's um, you know, there there's like uh, you know, classes you can take that, you know, help you learn this thing. Now, I

think it's a very empirical science. You

mostly learn by doing, but you know, it's like anthropic has its like, you know, part of the company that we call the Ministry of Education. And, you

know, I think increasingly, you know, we'll put out videos on how to run effective agents and how to prompt models. you know, we've already done

models. you know, we've already done some of that and I think we're going to we're going to ramp it up because, you know, we do want everyone to be able to learn this