25 Jul 2024
New data from Stack Overflow shows widening gap between AI use and trust
Prosus-owned Stack Overflow has released the results of its annual 2024 Developer Survey, that provides a comprehensive snapshot of the current state of software development. Gathering insights from over 65,000 technologists across 185 countries, a significant focus of this year's survey was the use and perception of artificial intelligence (AI) among developers.
While there is a growing reliance on AI tools - with 76% of respondents either using or planning to use AI, up from 70% in 2023 - there is a widening gap between AI use and trust in the output from AI tools. AI favourability ratings have decreased from 77% last year to 72% in 2024, while only 43% of respondents were confident in the accuracy of AI tools, a 1% increase from last year. Also, nearly half (45%) of professional developers believe AI tools struggle with handling complex tasks.
As well as perception and trust, the survey explored the ethical concerns associated with AI. Developers expressed worries about AI's potential to spread misinformation (79%), issues with data attribution (65%), and biases that could skew perspectives (50%). However, despite these concerns, 70% of professional developers do not see AI as a threat to their jobs.
Beyond AI, the survey looked at other aspects of the developer experience, including programming languages, cloud platforms, integrated development environments and learning and collaboration tools.
Other key findings from the survey include:
- Productivity: 81% of developers see increasing productivity as the top benefit of AI tools, while those learning to code list speeding up their learning as the top benefit (71%).
- Learning: 82% of developers learn to code with online resources (up from 80% in 2023), with technical documentation (83%) and Stack Overflow (80%) as the top two online resources consulted.
- Geographical favourability: Countries with the highest AI favourability ratings include India and Spain (both 75%), Brazil and Italy (both 73%), and France (71%). Lower ratings came from Germany (60%), Ukraine (61%), and the United Kingdom (62%).
- AI search tools: The top three AI Search tools used by developers are ChatGPT (82%), GitHub Copilot (41%), and Google Gemini (24%).
For a detailed look at the results of Stack Overflow’s 2024 Developer Survey, visit: Stack Overflow 2024 Developer Survey.