Generative AI coding tools promise huge efficiency gains for developers, but some tech leaders fear the consequences of spawning too much code too fast. IT leaders at United Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, Visa, Cardinal Health, Goldman Sachs and other companies say they are excited about generative AI’s potential to automate certain parts of the code-writing process and expect it to result in significant productivity gains. However, some IT executives say that lowering the barrier for code creation could also result in growing levels of complexity, technical debt and confusion as they try to manage a ballooning pile of software. “Technical debt” is a broad term describing the expected future costs for applying quick-fix solutions. “The potential for increased technical debt and orphan code is always a concern when delivery can be accelerated,” said Tracy Daniels, chief data officer at financial-services company Truist. “People have talked about technical debt for a long time, and now we have a brand new credit card here that is going to allow us to accumulate technical debt in ways we were never able to do before,” said Armando Solar-Lezama, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Full report : Some IT executives say generative AI lowers the barrier for code creation, which could result in growing levels of complexity, technical debt, and confusion.