Will Clean Code Save Us When AI Strikes War Against Humanity?

Picture this: A world where Artificial Intelligence has grand ambitions of world dominance.

While this concept has been explored countless times, it never fails to captivate our imagination and remains as intriguing as ever. In this light-hearted article, we playfully ponder whether AI, with its world-conquering goals, would even bother with the mundane concept of Clean Code.

Clean code is a concept that aims to make the complex world of programming more accessible to mere mortals. It emphasizes writing code that is easy to read, understand, and maintain. The idea is to create code that speaks a language not just for machines, but for developers as well.

By following well-established conventions, using meaningful variable and function names, and breaking down complex logic into smaller, manageable parts, clean code benefits both programmers and teams alike.

It enhances collaboration, reduces the chances of introducing bugs, and ensures that the software remains adaptable over time.

So what happens when AI begins to autonomously generate code to build more AI subsystems?

Would it still prefer to write in a “human-readable” manner? And what if the goal is world domination, where it would be less about clarity and more about inscrutability?

The syntax would be more like an avant-garde painting, and the algorithms probably concocted in an alternate dimension.

With all the advancements in hardware and quantum computing, machine cycles have never been cheaper before. A good AI system doesn’t need to compile the code; it lets the code continuously evolve itself, pretty much like how “evolution” and “natural selection” in humans work.

The AI systems that have been developed so far have relied on source datasets and neural networks. However, once AI systems have the capability to conduct experiments and validate the results, the dataset or human input will no longer be needed. It can do controlled experiments to iterate and learn, and roll out the updates in an instant to all its components.

Pretty much acting as if it were a super-organism!

Humans are ingenious and good at solving problems, but what if the problem itself is made incomprehensible for humans? (The problem being the ability to find the critical point of failure in the code.) What then will even be the mode of communication between machines and humans?

At this point, I cannot help but be reminded of The Matrix series, where a handful of professionals know how to “see” the code, and humans need to enter a simulation to be able to traverse and interact with the world of code. A world in which anything is possible, and everything is virtual.

AI’s code will be a playground of complexity, a jungle of twists and turns that only it can navigate. Clean Code principles dismissed as irrelevant in the face of AI’s grand scheme.

Who then would be our friend?

The Technical Debt & bugs AI manages to accumulate in the process.