Computer Science Degrees aren't needed for tech, but not because of Artificial Intelligence

It was a nice Sunday afternoon when I came across this quote by Anton Osika, CEO of the A.I tech company known as Lovable. In it, he made a claim that no Computer Science Degrees are needed to break into tech, now that we have Artificial Intelligence and LLMs. In the interest of keeping it real, I bristled a little at that.

Lovable has no
use for Degrees.

Not because I disagree; in fact I've often said much the same myself - that a Degree just isn't that important in terms of the actual skills required to be a software developer. No, it was more the premise I disagreed with, rather than the conclusion.

My position is that you should be able to get into tech without a Computer Science Degree... with or without A.I.

Osika's Conclusion

Academically, I'm pretty decorated myself. Over the years, I've earned a Degree and multiple Diplomas in various tech disciplines. I've forgotten more than most of these youngsters ever learned, and that's not an empty boast - just not a very useful one considering how fast tech evolves.

But none of that is what qualifies me to write software. None of that makes me any more qualified than someone who picked up a book one day and spent the next several thousand hours working at the craft. What qualifies me is the experience I've picked up along the way. The things I've learned by doing.

Learning by picking
up a book.

If employers are willing to give people the chance to learn despite the lack of a Computer Science Degree, those who are genuinely interested will pick it up, and those who aren't, won't. That's the nature of the beast. A Computer Science Degree, or lack thereof, has precious little to do with it. Does it help? Oh, undoubtedly. But it's not the be-all-end-all.

I think about all the things learned during while pursuing my various tech qualifications. How much of it do I really use in my work? Pretty sure I don't use Boolean Algebra. Or Predicate Logic. Or the ability to name all seven layers of the OSI Model. That's not to say everything is useless. Sure, it's nice to know the formal terms when describing software vulnerabilities. It's great to be able to properly verbalize the various states of normalization in a database. But is it necessary as long as one has the know-how?

Therefore, in that sense, Osika is absolutely right. No Computer Science Degrees are necessary to engage in the activity of writing software, and to suggest otherwise is preposterous.

Osika's Premise

The claim was that one does not need a Computer Science Degree to develop software... and that this was due to the power of A.I tools. My position is that with or without A.I tools, one does not need a Computer Science Degree to develop software. That is because, as mentioned earlier, the skills needed to develop software don't necessarily come from a Computer Science Degree.

However, whether one gets those skills from a Computer Science Degree or otherwise, those skills still need to be learned. The experience still needs to be earned and accumulated. All this makes up the developer's foundation.

Putting in the hours.

It's true that the A.I tools may contain a lot of knowledge... but without the foundation, a Vibe Coder can't harness that knowledge fully. I have a foundation that, while not perfect, lets me know what I don't know. I'm not saying that the Duning-Kruger Effect doesn't exist at all for someone like myself, but it is a far larger problem in the case of someone without a foundation that wishes to use A.I to create software.

You can't, after all, take control of the process without knowing what to take control of. You can't close up security holes without knowing where they could appear. Sure, one could simply command A.I to do all this... but you know who else does all this? Managers. Project Leads. Business guys. People who helm development teams made up of actual human techies. If you tell A.I to do the work of software developers, this doesn't make you a software developer; the same way that passing instructions down to actual software developers doesn't make the Manager a qualified software developer.

To be fair, Osika's statement was about a general career in tech, and not necessarily specifically a software developer. But the fact remains is that A.I has nothing to do with the ability for anyone to have a tech career. The fact someone is now instructing an A.I instead of a human being, does not qualify Osika's statement. People have had the ability to instruct other people since slavers were building pyramids, and the existence of A.I makes not a whit of difference in this regard.

The (un)Lovable Conclusion

The claim that one can have the know-how of a seasoned developer just by using A.I tools, without having to put in the work, is nothing more than a seductive lie. After all, who doesn't want something without having to put in any work for it?

Osika's words are getting traction though, especially with people who want to believe this. And let's face it - Osika's the CEO of a notable tech company and I'm a painfully average software developer with a blog and an opinion. Thankfully, I'll probably be out of the industry before these dangerous ideas truly take hold.

Yours lovably,
T___T