Tom Smith had a job interview as soon as he got Codex, a new artificial intelligence technology that creates his own computer programs.

He asked if he could tackle the “coding challenges” that programmers often face when interviewing for big bucks at Silicon Valley companies like Google and Facebook. Can I write a program that replaces all spaces in a sentence with dashes? Better yet, can I write something that identifies the invalid zip code?

I did both immediately before completing some other tasks. “These are problems that many people, including myself, have a hard time solving, and they enter a response in two seconds,” said Smith, a veteran programmer who oversees an AI startup called Gado Images. “It was creepy to see.”

Codex quickly seemed to be a technology that would replace human workers. As Smith continued to test the system, he realized that his skills far exceeded the knack for answering interview routine questions. You can also translate from one programming language to another. But after using this new technology for a few weeks, Smith doesn’t believe it poses a threat to professional coders. In fact, like many other professionals, he sees it as a tool for increasing human productivity. It may help a whole new generation of people learn the art of computers by showing them how to write simple code, just like a private tutor.

“This is a tool that can make the life of a coder much easier,” Smith said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Technology Express staff and is published from a syndicated feed)