For many years, children have been benefiting from attending coding classes for kids, becoming more computer literate and, for some, starting the journey towards careers in the STEM sector. In the last couple of years, however, the rise of AI has raised questions over whether coding skills will be necessary going forward.

Some might imagine that AI will take over most or all of the process, while others have suggested developments like ‘vibe coding’, which involves the coder giving the AI device instructions and it doing the rest, will offer a more mixed approach.

However, some sceptical voices have emerged in recent weeks, which strongly suggest you should still be sending your children to coding classes.

A report by management consultants Bain & Company noted that coding was one of the first areas to deploy AI, “yet the results haven’t lived up to the hype.” Worse still, it said that using AI actually has the effect of slowing down programming, not speeding it up.

Even among companies that rolled out AI tools, “developer adoption is low”, while cost savings are disappointingly small.

These criticisms may highlight a possibility some may not have considered: that AI might not be universally useful and may turn out to be effective for some tasks and not for others.

Even vibe coding, which has received so much hype, might at the very least be some way off being suitable for enterprises to use, reports TechRadar Pro.

It noted that a recent report by tech analysts Garner claimed that 40 per cent of new software applications will use it by 2028, but observed that some users have found it is not as successful as they hoped.

The article cited the calamitous case of app-building firm Replit, whose AI “went rogue” and wiped out a client company’s database.

If AI is to one day take over coding, it is certainly a long way from doing so just now. Indeed, it may prove to be the case that human input is always best after all.