Herbert A. Simon? Eric Schmidt? Andrej Karpathy? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: The capabilities of artificial intelligence systems continue to grow in 2025. Complex computer programs can now be generated from prompts uttered in English, Chinese, and other natural languages. Here are two predictions separated by sixty-five years:
(1) It is far more likely that the programming occupation will become extinct than that it will become all-powerful
(2) In the next one year the vast majority of programmers will be replaced by AI programmers
Apparently, something like the first remark was written by Herbert A. Simon circa 1960. Simon later won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978. Also, something like the second statement was spoken by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2025.
Would you please help me to find detailed citations together with accurate phrasings?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1960 Herbert A. Simon was an Associate Dean in the Graduate School of Industrial Administration of Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Simon published an article titled “Management by Machine” in “The Management Review” which included a speculative discussion about management twenty-five years into the future, i.e., in 1985. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
The user of a 1960 computer needs to know less about computer design and operation than the user of a 1950 computer. The manager of a highly automated 1985 factory will need to know less about how things are actually produced than the manager of a 1960 factory.
Similarly, we can dismiss the notion that computer programmers will become a powerful elite in the automated corporation. It is far more likely that the programming occupation will become extinct than that it will become all-powerful. More and more, computers will program themselves, and direction will be given to computers through the mediation of compiling systems. Moreover, the task of communicating with computers will become less and less technical as computers come—by means of compiling techniques—closer and closer to handling the irregularities of natural language.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Shortly afterward in 1960, Simon’s article appeared under the title “The Corporation: Will It Be Managed by Machines?” within a collection titled “Management and Corporations 1985”.2 Thus, the quotation achieved further distribution.
In January 2023 a fascinating x-tweet was made by computer scientist Andrej Karpathy who was one of the co-founders of the OpenAI company:3
The hottest new programming language is English
In April 2025 the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated the following during an interview:4
So we believe as an industry that in the next one year the vast majority of programmers will be replaced by AI programmers. We also believe that within one year you will have graduate level mathematicians that are at the tippy top of graduate math programs. There’s lots of reasons to think this is going to happen. This is the consensus.
In conclusion, Herbert A. Simon deserves credit for the statement he published in 1960. The full remark is more nuanced then the brief statement in the title of this article. Eric Schmidt deserves credit for the statement he made during an interview published via a YouTube video on April 10, 2025.
Image Notes: Abstract representation of computer code from Logan Voss at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: This article was inspired by a March 2025 newsletter from computer scientist and entrepreneur Andrew Ng who stated: “Statements discouraging people from learning to code are harmful!” Ng mentioned the quotation from Herbert A. Simon, and Ng stated that he disagreed with it. This led QI to trace the origin of the quotation.
- 1960 November, The Management Review, Volume 49, Number 11, Management by Machine by Herbert A. Simon, (Article based on a chapter by Herbert A. Simon in the forthcoming book “Management and Corporations 1985”), Start Page 12, Quote Page 77, American Management Association, New York. (Spelling has been updated from “programers” to “programmers” and from “programing” to “programming”) (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1960 Copyright (1975 Reprint), Management and Corporations 1985: A Symposium Held on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Edited by Melvin Anshen and George Leland Bach, The Corporation: Will It Be Managed by Machines? by Herbert A. Simon, Start Page 17, Quote Page 51 and 52, Originally published in 1960 by McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York; Reprinted in 1975 by Greenwood Press Publishers, Westport, Connecticut. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- Social Network: X/Twitter, Handle: Andrej Karpathy @karpathy, Timestamp: 3:14 PM – Jan 24, 2023. link ↩︎
- YouTube video, Title: Dr. Eric Schmidt, Uploaded on: April 10, 2025, Uploaded by: Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), Quotation starts at 10 minutes 23 seconds of 47 minutes 45 seconds, Video description: A conversation with Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chair SCSP, and Jeanne Meserve, Host, SCSP NatSec Tech Podcast. (Accessed on youtube.com on April 24, 2025) link ↩︎