Artificial Intelligence has been making serious waves in the world of software development. Tools like GitHub Copilot and other coding assistants have become popular for helping developers write code faster. Some people even believe AI is just a few months away from replacing human programmers entirely.

But hold up — not so fast.

Researchers from Microsoft have a reality check: AI might be decent at writing code, but it’s still not good enough at debugging — and that’s a huge part of a developer’s job.

Debugging: The Hidden Hero of Programming

For anyone Human isn’t a coder, debugging might sound like just a small part of the process — but it’s actually where developers spend most of their time. Writing code is just the beginning. The real work starts when something breaks… which happens often.

Think of debugging like being a digital detective:

You need to find out what went wrong,
why it went wrong,
and then figure out how to fix it.

That’s not as easy as it sounds, and it turns out AI struggles with exactly that.

Microsoft’s Experiment: Can AI Learn to Debug?

To test this, Microsoft Research created a tool called debug-gym, which they’ve shared publicly on GitHub. It’s a kind of playground where AI models can practice debugging real-world software.

In this environment, AI isn’t just guessing what’s wrong with a piece of code — it gets access to proper debugging tools (just like human developers use) to explore and analyze problems.

The goal? See if the AI can figure out how to fix bugs more effectively when given the right tools.

The Results: Better, But Still Not Great

With access to debug tools, the AI did improve its performance — but not by much.

The best success rate researchers saw was 48.4%. That means in more than half of the cases, the AI couldn’t fix the issue.

In other words: it’s not even close to matching what a skilled human developer can do.

Why is that?

According to Microsoft, the problem isn’t just the tools — it’s the training data.

AI models learn from large collections of code and text, but they haven’t been trained on sequential debugging behaviors — like how a person carefully steps through code to figure out what’s broken. These “debugging traces” are missing from most of the data used to train current models.

What’s Next? Smarter Models, Not Bigger Ones

The Microsoft team believes this is just the beginning.

Their next move is to train what they call an “info-seeking model” — a smaller AI system that specializes in gathering the right information to help fix bugs. That info can then be passed to a bigger AI model, saving computing power and improving accuracy.

It’s a bit like having a junior assistant who looks things up, so the senior engineer (the bigger model) can focus on the heavy lifting.

Why This Matters: Reality Check for AI Replacing Developers

This study is just one more sign that the idea of AI replacing developers anytime soon is… let’s say, a bit optimistic.

Yes, AI tools can definitely help developers — and in some cases, they can even build small apps or features pretty quickly. But those tools still tend to produce code with bugs, security holes, and poor design. Worse, they often don’t know how to fix their own mistakes.

That’s why most researchers agree:

AI won’t replace human developers — but it can make their work faster and easier.

Think of AI as a coding sidekick, not the superhero. It can help you write boilerplate code, suggest syntax, or even point out possible errors — but for now, you still need a skilled human to guide the ship.

Final Thoughts: AI + Humans = The Future of Coding

The future of software development is going to be a team effort between AI and humans.

AI will continue to get better at writing and even debugging code — especially as tools like debug-gym help models learn more sophisticated strategies. But we’re not at a point where you can hand over a project and say, “AI, go build this — and make sure it works perfectly.”

Until then, we’ll rely on developers not just to write code, but to understand it, fix it, and make sure it’s safe and efficient. AI can help — but it’s not ready to take over.

And if you’re a developer reading this? Don’t worry — your job is safe (for now).