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No, A Bot Will Not Steal Your Spot

For my last blog for this class — Software Quality Assurance and Testing — I decided to look at what I could find about the subject in the news. After searching around, I found an article from Forbes that came out only a few days ago — December 17. The article was titled “AI In Software Testing: Will A Bot Steal Your Spot?”

My first impression before I read the article was, “Of course not! There will always be people whose job it is to test software.” Software is growing to touch every corner of our lives, and even if AI is incorporated, I would think it would be unlikely that they would entirely, or even partially, replace testers.

Halfway through the article, the author confirmed my skepticism by saying, “While it’s unlikely the testers will be wiped out, I think machine learning and other branches of AI will significantly alter the way software testing is conducted.”

The article seems to have a misleading title. The article goes on to give several examples of how robots will be useful for people, but they will be still be implemented by people, whose jobs are still be there, even with the robots. It didn’t even hint even some jobs would be lost. It just said the job would look different. Seems pretty obvious that new tools will come out that will change how the work is done. That is true for most all industries.

The article might as well been titled “Sharks in the Ocean: Will You Be Eaten When You Go Swimming?” And then once you read it says “probably not.” This is click bait at it’s finest. Have a sensationalized title for people to click on, and then say, “It’s not going to happen.” It would be one thing if it were titled something different.

However, at least I sighed a breath of relief when I read what the article concluded. I would hate for something that I have wanted to pursue as a career be automated before I even graduate.

I’m sure that many parts of the computer science industry that will change dramatically over my career. I hope like most people that I will always be able to find work, but I think that the field is going to be fairly stable for a long time. However, I’m sure there will be no shortage of headlines that have similar titles — “Is your job in jeopardy?” I also think that the article contents will usually say that it’s not.  I do think it’s a good idea to keep alert to changes in the industry because no career or company is invulnerable.

Work Cited:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/12/17/ai-in-software-testing-will-a-bot-steal-your-spot/#996553136710

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