As We Break Surface – The AI Transmutation of Web Dev
Morten Rand-Hendriksen
AI & Ethics & Rights & Justice | Educator | TEDx Speaker | Neurodivergent System Thinker | Dad
"Hey AI, build me a website."
It's a matter of time - probably months, before we get here. I'm surprise we're not here already:
Prompt:
Build me a website based on the documents and images in this Google Drive folder. Make it accessible and usable on all devices. Make it an app users can pin to their phone. Add a text-to-voice feature on every page. Pull in my videos from YouTube and TikTok. Style it to be modern and make the styles easy to change later. Give it a robust back-end API for all the data. And an RSS feed for all users. I want to be ready for the future beyond rectangular screens. Please.
If I was in any product related to web hosting or code, I'd be building this right now. I'm sure someone is. I'm sure many are. I'll be roughly -100% surprised when this drops from a major cloud provider or version control service or CMS within the next few months. Actually, I'd be shocked if it didn't.
All the automations and frameworks and templates and tools already exist - have for a long time. We've been using them to build the modern web. All the back-end hooks and CLIs and CI integrations to do this with any major framework, using any major build process, served from any major host, with any integration, already exists.
All that's needed is a sprinkling of AI for harmonization; to boot up a repo, spin up a virtual dev environment, pull the necessary dependencies, set up the configs to match user specs and keys, configure the setup, populate the components and styles and pages, run the build, and push it to the host.
And once the project is built, in-browser live visual editing with immediate code updates is also already here.
Builder.io has been close for a while. Cursor and Replit are almost there. Others are hot on their heels.
This isn't a future prediction—it's a future certainty. We are already here, we just haven't realized it yet. Because nobody has pulled the pieces all the way together. Yet.
We built our processes for this moment - we just didn't realize it.
Building modern websites required knowing frameworks and build processes and optimization and CI and serving strategies, and knowing how to put them together and make them sing. That was where developer expertise came in; In the cryptic knowing and intricate wiring together and alchemic configuration of the pieces to make up the whole. That was the gate. And we kept it closed by building more complex and streamlined developer experiences.
领英推荐
This, through a different lens, is AI project management. This is already possible - it just needs an interface and the right permissions.
This is what's next. And for the web dev industry, it'll be upending, revolutionary, a transmutation.
This is also coming for every other software dev field, it'll just take a bit longer.
Devs will still have work, plenty of it. It'll be different work. More demanding, and interesting, and challenging, and human work.
When AI makes coding and project management cheap, when throwaway software becomes ubiquitous and sufficient for the task, when one-size-fits-all becomes one-experience-for-every-user, the value of a skilled developer shifts - from coding and management to product design, and accessibility, and internationalization, and user experience, and data management, and privacy, and security, and serving the user the data and interaction they need, in their context, in their moment, at their convenience and control.
And all this at the end of the web as a screen-based platform where the same website serves every user.
Are you ready for what comes next?
--
Morten Rand-Hendriksen is a philosopher and tech educator specializing in AI, emerging technologies, the web, and the intersection between technology and humanity. He creates courses at LinkedIn Learning, speaks at major conferences, and voices his opinions about technology and how it shapes us across several channels.
WordPress Fangirl, Content Strategist, Ghostwriter, Linguistic Alchemist, and Podcast Consultant
6 个月I agree this is not that far off, because AI should be able to incorporate various kinds of standards and comply with them when building, and the standards themselves evolve a lot more slowly than AI can take them in. At which point our job as developer/consultants would be more making sure that the prompt includes and enforces the standards. Part is helping the client to know what kinds of features serve their business and how to identify what works and doesn't. Very little would be writing code, which I'm okay with. I like writing code, but thousands (at least) of humans already write better code than I do, and so do existing AI tools for programming. I do think, though, that human biology is a large part of what's determined the types of interfaces we have now. We're predators with front-facing eyes and binocular vision. We have to turn our heads to see to the sides, our bodies to see behind us. Our stomachs tend to be unhappy with long-term immersion. Still, the possibilities for auto-conversion from, say, visual to audio interface depending on your circumstances or abilities are inspiring.
CS education will have to start teaching how to writ good queries for the perfect web system... Oh wait, AI can help you with that too.
Creative Generalist | Beagle Whisperer | AI Solutions for Small Business
6 个月I'm totally excited for the LinkedIn Learning class you'll one day make that'll show us how to make a headless WordPress site front end spontaneously with AI unique to every user, and perhaps also unique to every visit. From what I can tell, with Structured Output, everything necessary is available to make it happen. All we have to focus on is that structure and the central content that brings it all together. ?
Build | Buy | Operate Content Technologies
6 个月This is both a “yes, of course” and a “but…” Developing a modern site/app, akin to your prompt, isn’t exactly rocket science. But your example alone spans a dozen ecosystems, each with their own environments, credentials, and quirks. A friend recently asked me “could you make this small change to this React app of mine. Don’t worry, it’s all on github with automated deployment.” I’m not a developer so I wouldn’t do this for anyone but a friend, but still paused…that change? Maybe five minutes work. Getting into the project and understanding how it’s all tied together to be able to deploy that small change? Two days of work. The Internet is still McGyvered together from paperclips and pieces of tape, and AI doesn’t deal with that very well. And every integration that makes an app worthwhile adds another piece to the jenga tower. And that’s assuming you’d even know what you want. I tend to say that “agile shouldn’t be an excuse for not knowing what you want,” and I should probably start saying “GenAI can’t create what you don’t know.” I’m sure we’ll see more and more AI website/app creators. But it’ll be extremely difficult to take that beyond a fairly straightforward brochure website or campaign microsite. So… a better Wix?
Art Director / Copywriter / Brand Thinker
6 个月Ready !