Microsoft Exec Says This Is Now A 'Core Skill' And Fighting It Is 'Like Betting Against Reading In The 14th Century'

Microsoft MSFT Chief Product Officer of Experiences & Devices, Aparna Chennapragada, recently said, “Betting against computer science is like betting against reading in the 14th century,” dismissing the notion that generative AI will soon render human coders obsolete.

What Happened: In a recent Bloomberg interview with Emily Chang, she answered, saying, "Yes, yes, and yes," when asked whether children still need to learn to code and companies still need engineers.

Chennapragada argued that coding is more than typing instructions. "It's that logical thinking, critical thinking," skills she said, become more vital as developers team with large language models that already draft sizable chunks of software.

"If you're going to work with AI-generated code, guess what? You need more of it," Chennapragada insists, pointing to the extra review, testing and security layers only humans can provide.

Why It Matters: Executives at Cognizant CTSH and Okta OKTA echo Chennapragada’s view in recent interviews with Business Insider, stating that AI boosts junior productivity and accelerates promotion paths, even as Reuters notes that startups are still burning cash to hire senior engineers who can tame code-generation tools.

However, a recent Pew Research survey found that half of AI experts predicted the technology would lead to fewer software development jobs over the next two decades.

Chennapragada’s defense lands as CEO Satya Nadella says AI now writes about 30% of Microsoft's code. Meta META chief Mark Zuckerberg likewise forecast in a podcast that AI could shoulder half of Llama's development work within a year, adding to fears that the talent pipeline could thin.

Nadella, meanwhile, urges aspiring tech professionals to master the fundamentals of computational thinking before anything else. He said logically breaking down problems and systematically designing solutions will stay indispensable even as AI reshapes coding and problem-solving.