The centaur programmer -- How Kasparov's Advanced Chess spans over to the software development of the future

Abstract

We introduce the idea of Centaur Programmer, based on the premise that a collaborative approach between humans and AI will be more effective than AI alone, as demonstrated in centaur chess tournaments where mixed teams of humans and AI beat sole computers. The paper introduces several collaboration models for programming alongside an AI, including the guidance model, the sketch model, and the inverted control model, and suggests that universities should prepare future programmers for a more efficient and productive programming environment augmented with AI. We hope to contribute to the important discussion about the diverse ways whereby humans and AI can work together in programming in the next decade, how universities should handle these changes and some legal implications surrounding this topic.