As OpenAI races to build the best AI coding agent, Chairman Bret Taylor says: It is hard emotionally to ...

As chatGPT maker-OpenAI is racing to build the most advanced AI coding agent, its chairman Bret Taylor admits that he still finds it emotionally difficult to move away from writing code itself. According to a report Business Insider, speaking on Stripe cofounder John Collison’s Cheeky Pint podcast, Taylor said, “I am trying to get to a world where I’m not writing code. It’s hard, emotionally, if that makes any sense. I have a hard time not caring.”

AI-driven coding tools reshaping the role of software engineers

The comments made by Taylor highlight the broader tension in tech industry, where AI-driven coding tools are reshaping the job role of software engineers. Taylor further explained that he cares a lot about the correctness and robustness of his code, but is trying to teach himself to detach from that craftsmanship. “I feel like I won’t be a self-actualized software engineer in the future if I’m too precious about that artifact which used to be so central to me,” he said.




As reported by BI, some other prominent figures have also echoed similar sentiments. Boris Cherny, creator of Anthropic’s Claude code, recently claimed that the tool has ‘practically solved’ coding. On the other hand, David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, compared hand-coding to an artisan skill like saddlemaking in a world dominated by cars valuable for personal satisfaction but no longer central to mainstream production.

The rise of agentic AI

OpenAI’s push into agentic AI coding tools reflects a larger industry trend where coding is increasingly automated. Taylor acknowledged the usefulness of tools like Codex, but said he is still unsure what the future of integrated development environments will look like in this new era. He joked about creating “bespoke artisanal code,” but admitted coding had been his “entire life before” and he is still figuring out what role craftsmanship will play in the AI age.

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