{"id":1524,"date":"2025-10-01T10:57:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/?page_id=1524"},"modified":"2025-11-19T19:16:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T01:16:19","slug":"is-the-software-engineer-a-cromagnon-in-the-age-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/is-the-software-engineer-a-cromagnon-in-the-age-of-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Software Engineer a CroMagnon in the Age of AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Time:<\/strong> 1:35-2:25pm<br><strong>Location:<\/strong> Room 3<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Speaker:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p>Dr. John Robb<br>Lockheed Martin (retired)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"266\" height=\"347\" src=\"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2025\/10\/image-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2025\/10\/image-3.png 266w, https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2025\/10\/image-3-230x300.png 230w, https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2025\/10\/image-3-161x210.png 161w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 266px) 100vw, 266px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Abstract:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This presentation examines whether AI will replace software engineers or transform their role, focusing on quantitative usage data from industry experience. Current findings reveal a paradox: widespread AI adoption with reported productivity gains, yet declining trust as developers encounter the &#8220;almost right but not quite&#8221; problem. AI excels at statistical pattern matching for routine tasks but struggles with abstraction, causal reasoning, and novel problem-solving\u2014core engineering competencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This presentation focuses on the specifics of where current AI models demonstrate strength versus weakness, and presents a roadmap for the software engineer of today and tomorrow. By examining AI&#8217;s fundamental limitations in conceptual understanding and its effectiveness in pattern-based tasks, we chart the evolution from code writer to AI orchestrator, system architect, and innovation leader. The Cro-Magnon analogy suggests not species extinction, but evolutionary advancement into a more sophisticated role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Speaker Bio:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr John H. Robb has 36 years of Safety Critical Software development experience at Lockheed Martin. He obtained his PhD in Software Engineering from SMU and became full-time faculty at the UTA Department of Computer Science and Engineering where he taught thousands of students in Software Engineering, Software Testing, and Advanced Software Testing. For the last 5 years he was a contract software engineer at Lockheed Martin working on safety critical coding and unit testing using the skills that he developed in his previous industry experience and taught in his classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Materials:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2025\/11\/Is-the-Software-Engineer-a-Cro-Magnon-in-the-Age-of-AI.pdf.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of Is the Software Engineer a Cro-Magnon in the Age of AI.pdf.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-73d52578-431a-435b-a7d7-c7023be42d79\" href=\"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2025\/11\/Is-the-Software-Engineer-a-Cro-Magnon-in-the-Age-of-AI.pdf.pdf\">Is the Software Engineer a Cro-Magnon in the Age of AI.pdf<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2025\/11\/Is-the-Software-Engineer-a-Cro-Magnon-in-the-Age-of-AI.pdf.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-73d52578-431a-435b-a7d7-c7023be42d79\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time: 1:35-2:25pmLocation: Room 3 Speaker: Dr. John RobbLockheed Martin (retired) Abstract: This presentation examines whether AI will replace software engineers or transform their role, focusing on quantitative usage data from industry experience. Current findings reveal a paradox: widespread AI adoption with reported productivity gains, yet declining trust as developers encounter the &#8220;almost right but not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1524","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1822,"href":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1524\/revisions\/1822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metrocon.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}