AI-based services such as ChatGPT and CoPilot promise to increase the quality and efficiency of programming. Such tools can strongly influence which information developers consume and reuse - thus impacting our knowledge, beliefs, decisions, and actions. But at the same time, these systems can create substantial business value for different stakeholders. Generative AI and deep learning can generate code, develop prototypes, optimize algorithms, and perform security audits, to name just a few. Given the growing potential impact of AI-based tools on developers, organizations, and society, questions of biases, copyrights, lack of explainability, trustworthiness and fairness have gained increased attention in recent years.

In this talk, we will first review the basics of Generative AI. Then, we will discuss the toolchain and the impact of AI on software development practices and how software developers work and think. What possibilities and potentials do current AI technologies offer to make software more robust, reliable, and simultaneously easy to produce and maintain? On the one hand, the ongoing adoption of AI-based tools may introduce much more efficient software developments and deliveries. On the other hand, these techniques can raise risks and threats. The challenge of balancing these opportunities and benefits against their potential for negative impacts underlines the need for more discussion in software development communities.

This presentation does not only provide an overview of a popular topic. We will also discuss how our profession is changing in the long run. What biases and challenges do software developers face during their routine work, and which challenges may be reinforced by the broader adoption of AI-based tools? I will encourage the audience to think deeply about how they use and develop AI-based tools, to engage and to collaborate more on that topic with each other to be able to shape the future together.