Application of Large Language Models to Software Engineering Tasks: Opportunities, Risks, and Implications

Has the day we all have been waiting for really arrived? Have advances in deep learning and machine learning (ML) finally reached a turning point and have started to produce “accurate enough” assistants to help us in a variety of tasks, including software development? Are large language models (LLM) going to turn us all into better writers, artists, translators, programmers, health-care workers, not to mention software engineers? Or are we at a risky turning point where we will not be able to separate artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content from user-created ones, drowning in misinformation and perfect sounding yet fake and incorrect information and AI-generated faulty programs?