Why Every High Schooler Must Learn to Code—An OpenAI Engineer Reveals the Shocking Truth That Schools Are Missing
So, here’s a thought to chew on: in an era where AI can whip up code faster than you can say “syntax error,” should high school students still bother learning to code themselves? You might be tempted to shrug and say, “Why bother? Let the bots handle it!” But Szymon Sidor, an OpenAI researcher, is out here setting the record straight—coding remains a crucial skill, not just for writing programs, but for sharpening problem-solving muscles and critical thinking. Even with AI tools like ChatGPT and Cursor swooping in to automate the heavy lifting, the mental art of breaking down gnarly problems into bite-sized chunks? That’s irreplaceable. Kind of like asking if pilots should really understand aerodynamics before they fly. Sure, AI is changing the game—Nvidia’s CEO argues you can just talk to a bot to get your code—but underneath it all, the foundation of structured intellect still matters as much as ever. So maybe, just maybe, getting those fingers tapping on a keyboard is something worth hanging onto in the digital age after all. LEARN MORE
An OpenAI staff member is clearing up the “misinformation” online and telling high school students that they should “absolutely learn to code.”
On an episode of the OpenAI podcast last week, OpenAI researcher Szymon Sidor noted that high school students still gain benefits from learning programming, even though AI coding tools like ChatGPT and Cursor automate the process.
Learning to code helps students develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, Sidor said. He noted that even if programming becomes obsolete in the future, it is still a viable way to cultivate the skill of breaking down problems and solving them.
Related: Perplexity CEO Says AI Coding Tools Cut Work Time From ‘Four Days to Literally One Hour’
“One skill that is at premium, and will continue being at premium, is to have a really structured intellect that can break complicated problems into pieces,” Sidor said on the podcast. “That might not be programming in the future, but programming is a fine way to acquire that skill. So are other kinds of domains where you need to think a lot.”
Podcast host Andrew Mayne, who was previously OpenAI’s chief science communicator, agreed with Sidor. Mayne stated that he learned to code “later in life” and found it to be a useful foundation in interacting with AI to engineer precise prompts.
“Whenever I hear people say, ‘Don’t learn to code,’ it’s like, do I want an airplane pilot who doesn’t understand aerodynamics?” Mayne said on the podcast. “This doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Though Mayne and Sidor may believe that learning to code is foundational and recommend it to high school students, another AI leader presents a contrasting viewpoint. Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, the most valuable company in the world, said in June that AI equalizes the technological playing field and allows anyone to write code simply by prompting an AI bot in natural language.
Instead of learning Python or C++, users can just ask AI to write a program, Huang explained.
Big Tech companies are increasingly turning to AI to generate new code, instead of having human engineers manually write it.
In April, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that staff members were tapping into AI to write “well over 30%” of new code at Google, higher than 25% recorded in October. In the same month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that engineers are using AI to write up to 30% of code for company projects.
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An OpenAI staff member is clearing up the “misinformation” online and telling high school students that they should “absolutely learn to code.”
On an episode of the OpenAI podcast last week, OpenAI researcher Szymon Sidor noted that high school students still gain benefits from learning programming, even though AI coding tools like ChatGPT and Cursor automate the process.
Learning to code helps students develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, Sidor said. He noted that even if programming becomes obsolete in the future, it is still a viable way to cultivate the skill of breaking down problems and solving them.
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