Building applications without code is not new, but lately I've been thinking a lot about how AI will allow anyone to become a developer and make building applications without writing any code easier than ever.
I keep thinking of Star Trek and the holodeck, where the interface for building anything it literally just the spoken word.
Anything you can imagine can be built in next to no time.
Now, naturally, we're not close to the kind of high fidelity world building powers of the holodeck, but I genuinely think we are not far away from anyone being able to build an application simply through describing what you need.
I love writing code, but I've always seen it as a means to end.
The current state of no-code is great, but there are also a number of well documented challenges when it comes to using those platforms.
Challenges like:
Who is building this all in one AI driven platform that solves these problems?
Does anyone else want to see this in the world or is it just me?
I find No Code more complex than coding specific features, but I struggle with both currently.
I have tried to use AI to help me with making things but they seem to get confused and into a never-ending loop.
This is very interesting and rich. I have jotted down some ideas in my notepad and am contemplatively analyzing them. Thank you for your contribution. I'll be looking forward to new articles :)
I'm working on a website builder (withBilly.com) which uses AI and it's a no-code software solution. I think some of your listed challenges are valid, like for example, platform risk and lock-in but this is with almost every saas tool ever created. But I have to disagree with your steep learning curve point, for example, I think it's easier to use a no-code tool to create a website then to learn to code. To answer your question and speaking from my experience, every software company has to build their own in house AI and ML models, I don't think there will be one AI platform which will rule all.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here! Definitely going to be interesting to see how things play out over the next few years!