Why Software Engineering Is Indispensable in the Age of Coding Agents

Key points

• And can it make software engineers -- the professionals -- redundant?1
• This paper argues that the rise of capable AI coding agents makes SE and software engineers essential, not obsolete: the missing foundation without which AI-assisted development produces misleadingly plausible, unverifiable, and ultimately untrustworthy software.1
• Three structural properties of large language models (probabilistic generation, agnosticism, and semantic statelessness) create a structural vacuum that no amount of training can eliminate.1
• Filling it requires four knowledge levers: methodological knowledge, domain knowledge, design choices, and process choices.1

Sources (1)

• [1]Why Software Engineering Is Indispensable in the Age of Coding Agents
  arXiv (AI, ML, NLP, CV, robotics, multi-agent) · Oct 7, 03:17 PM

  Can AI make Software Engineering (SE) -- the discipline -- obsolete?

  And can it make software engineers -- the professionals -- redundant?

Extractive summary: sentences quoted from the sources.