Can ChatGPT replace the role of a Junior Front-end Developer?

Now there is a lot of panic among developers that ChatGPT could take their place, especially after the article that ChatGPT was interviewed by Google.

Of course, this is a powerful tool that can be used both for work questions and just as a bot with which you can talk, but in my personal opinion, using ChatGPT as a replacement for a Junior developer will still not work. At a minimum, you need a person who will ask the right questions to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT can be used as an auxiliary tool for solving certain problems or consultations. It can sketch a simple website or application, but as practice shows, the solutions provided by ChatGPT are not always of high quality. The key feature of ChatGPT is "memory". Unlike many AI chatbots, ChatGPT remembers the details of a conversation and can build responses based on the information the user has already given it. Nevertheless,

ChatGPT does not see the whole picture of what is happening on the project and does not take this into account in its decisions. A junior developer is usually seen as a qualified, independent specialist who can develop a website or an application, and while his solutions can also be of different quality, depending on experience, the percentage of defects will be much lower. A junior front-end developer can design and develop custom solutions that cater to the specific needs of a business. ChatGPT, on the other hand, can only respond to queries based on its pre-programmed responses.

What are the differences between ChatGPT and a Junior Front-end Developer in terms of skill set?

ChatGPT is basically like Wikipedia with a huge knowledge base that comes up with ready-made answers. But not only knowledge is important, but also the ability to apply it, so we come to the first point — experience and programming skills. ChatGPT often gives a “flat” solution to a problem, while a junior developer, based on his experience, can give several brilliant solutions that he could see somewhere or had previously encountered similar problems. What also matters is soft skills, the ability to communicate and work in a team. ChatGPT works on a question-and-answer basis, while Junior Developer can ask a few clarifying questions to determine the accuracy and understand the problem better.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using ChatGPT instead of a Junior Front-end Developer?

Nowadays, AI is used in a vast number of fields. There is such a thing as the "uncanny valley effect", which means that a robot or other object that looks or acts approximately like a person (but not exactly like a real one) causes fear and disgust in people. There is also the concept of responsibility. It is hard to imagine that if ChatGPT ruined the production, it would be the one to blame. The responsibility would fall on the person who controlled the work of ChatGPT, which brings us back to the fact that without a person ChatGPT is unlikely to do anything and it needs to be controlled. If we theoretically consider the pros and cons in the work of Junior Developer and ChatGPT, the speed of answers and the proposed options will be a definite plus in favour of AI, but they may not be optimal in a particular task. In the most primitive options, ChatGPTt will win. However, creativity is important and human solutions will 99% manage it better than AI.

How ChatGPT can learn and improve its skills to reach the level of a Junior Front-end Developer

AI is getting actively developed. AI processes billions of gigabytes of information and is being constantly trained. The main problem of ChatGPT is that it solves a point problem that is given to it, that is, it is a narrow view of the project. While a real specialist can dig into the project and provide solutions that fit perfectly into the picture of the entire project.

Once, when performing one of the tasks, I had to use a new library. After studying the documentation and connecting it to the project, everything didn’t work right away. I decided to test ChatGPT and asked it to sketch out the connection of this library. I noticed that it used parameters that were not specified in the documentation. Upon closer examination, I found several similar answers on the popular StackOverflow platform for developers.

In its particular form, ChatGPT is a huge cheat sheet, an auxiliary tool. For instance, ChatGPT is a great help in writing project documentation or code. This is a routine that developers really dislike. Due to the human factor (fatigue, the desire to write code perfectly) when performing any tasks, the developer may miss the obvious solution, then ChatGPT will come to the rescue.

If you ask the question ChatGPT "Can you replace the developer?" He will answer that he was created as an auxiliary tool.

In conclusion, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can assist businesses in interacting with customers. However, it cannot replace the role of a junior front-end developer entirely. While ChatGPT is cost-effective, it has limitations in terms of creativity, flexibility, and integration with other systems. Therefore, businesses should use ChatGPT as a complementary tool to a junior front-end developer rather than a replacement.

Maksym Ivanov is a front-end Developer at Kyrrex.