For OpenAI, improving the programming capabilities of its AI is a self-reinforcing loop — as ChatGPT gets better at coding, its engineers get faster too.
That’s according to Kevin Weil, the chief product officer of OpenAI, who was recently asked by podcaster Azeem Azhar why the company had focused so much on AI coding tools from a “commercial perspective.”
“It’s really important to us because if we can speed up coding, if we can make, you know, every engineer more effective, we also make ourselves more effective,” Weil said in the interview. “And so we can build even faster.”
The AI company has also demonstrated a willingness to make acquisitions to bolster its efforts. Earlier this year, OpenAI acquired Windsurf, a startup that produced a popular AI coding tool, for a reported $3 billion.
Weil said OpenAI is particularly focused on programming for a number of reasons, including that it’s a relatively concrete task, which makes it easier to determine improvement in model performance as opposed to something more subjective, like writing.
“It’s also a relatively gradable task — you can tell, like in math or other things, if you get the answer right,” the CPO said.
Engineers are also evidently well-acquainted with coding processes, which Weil said makes it easier to train the models.
“It’s also something that our engineers are familiar with,” he said. “So, it’s a problem space that they understand and have good intuition for.” OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider prior to publication.
The market for AI coding tools itself is big, Weil added, and rife with people who are largely more willing to start experimenting with new technologies before most of the general public. However, concerns persist in the developer community that AI, rather than acting solely as a tool to increase existing programmers’ productivity, could one day be used to replace them entirely — particularly when it comes to early-career coders.
“It’s also a huge market,” Weil said, adding, “It’s also a market full of early adopters — you know, technologists leaning into this.”
Add to that a lack of stringent regulation when compared to other industries, Weil said that coding becomes “a really interesting” market to innovate in.
“It’s also, you know, relatively sort of open and unregulated,” the OpenAI CPO said. “It’s not like trying to go into health or something where, you know, there are all kinds of other things you have to do.”