The end of an era

Since I first pressed the keys of a ZX-Spectrum in 1984, where I learnt to write my first lines of assembly language for the Zilog Z80 (and then millions more), I have lived in a state of perpetual learning: the more I worked, the less I knew; the more I explored, the more lost I felt. I do not know how much I do not know. It sounds odd, but it keeps my adrenaline in check.

However, what we have been experiencing over just the past few months has led me to a deep, considered, cross-checked and thoroughly analysed reflection: we have reached the end of a digital era that has only been the prelude to what is coming.

If you are a programmer, whether you build websites, mobile applications or work in any other environment that produces business management software, be concerned about your immediate future. No, it will not happen in years: it is happening today.

Over the past year at IERTEC, simply to speed up certain processes, we have trained an AI familiar to everyone to help us develop applications and generate high-value tools related to exploiting and analysing the Big Data (yes, Big: 100,000,000+ a week) ingested by our equipment.

The result has been unsettling: the system writes code on its own. We have had to correct a few details and document the system a little more. The system develops software by itself. Wait a moment, I am not sure I have expressed that clearly: the system develops software that is functional after deployment in less than 30 minutes.

No-code tools, development copilots and other tools are transforming our landscape, forcing us to choose one of two options: move down or move up a level. We no longer have a role here in the middle. Just as years ago it was necessary to understand a microprocessor's registers and interrupts, whereas today hardly anyone knows that field, you no longer need to know how to programme anything, simply because it is no longer necessary.

Moving up a level means abstraction (most tech companies live in abstraction) and forgetting the machine to enter the business of integration and digital service provision from the uppermost layers.

Or moving down, which is our choice. Moving down a level means getting closer to the machine: developing microcontrollers, packaging sensors with ARM microcontrollers or the well-intentioned RISC-V, embedding intelligent systems in small circuits — in short, moving closer to the ground. Moving down can also mean helping to generate expert systems (as we called them until AI arrived) that help systems continue to advance.

This inevitable divide will leave a gap between the lower layer and the upper layer that, until today, we humans occupied with our knowledge of different disciplines. It is ironic that AI will do the most damage in the very place where it originated.

Is this negative? I do not think so. It is positive, but it demands rapid transformation, immediate decision-making and changes of direction. At IERTEC, we are already steering our future in both directions: firstly towards the semiconductor industry, and secondly towards providing services based on our own technologies.

Jaime Oliva
Chief Executive Officer of IERTEC
March 2025