Implementing AI into software engineering? Here's everything you need to know

Kobus Louw/Getty Images

Software developers thrive on certainty. If you feed a program a set of inputs, you'll always get the same outputs. For most of software's history, software was built entirely on deterministic logic. What goes in determines what goes out.

We even have a term for that: top-down programming. All algorithms follow a path, with branching that's also based on expected logic. When we debug code, we run down that same path over and over again, finding where behavior deviates from expectation, and wrangling it back on track.

The Intersection of Generative AI and Engineering

The surge of generative AI can harness tremendous potential for the engineering realm. It can also come with its challenges, as enterprises and engineers alike figure out the impact of AI on their roles, business strategies, data, solutions, and product development. What does the future roadmap look like for bringing generative AI into the software fold? ZDNET decodes from all angles.

Read now

Certainty and deterministic logic work for a lot of software. But the real world doesn't work that way. By contrast, AI is probabilistic. Answers are never exact. Instead, AI uses models to predict behavior, and then generates that behavior.

Perhaps the best way to describe this is how traditional software is updated vs. AI. Traditional software gets updates and patches. AI learns, evolving on its own, understanding and assimilating user feedback without manual intervention. This makes traditional software more precise, but AI more flexible.

AI in 2023: A year of breakthroughs that left no human thing unchanged These are the jobs most likely to be taken over by AI AI at the edge: 5G and the Internet of Things see fast times ahead Almost half of tech executives say their organizations aren't ready for AI or other advanced initiatives AI in 2023: A year of breakthroughs that left no human thing unchanged

These are the jobs most likely to be taken over by AI

AI at the edge: 5G and the Internet of Things see fast times ahead

Almost half of tech executives say their organizations aren't ready for AI or other advanced initiatives

Editorial standards Show Comments