Ministry of Testing London Meet Up 30/01/2025 AI versus Testers Panel

Yesterday evening after work I attended the Ministry of Testing FIRST London meetup. I attended on my own and was wondering what to expect. As usual the community is very welcoming. When I first walked in someone introduced themselves to me, so it eased into the meetup quite well. I then grabbed a drink and walked around the room. There was a small group talking and they opened up the space for me to join. This is what is great about these types of events with it so welcoming and inclusive. People make space.

I did also notice that there is an option for you to go and sit, chill and wait for the panel to start. Some people did that option as well, so I thought that was also awesome to have the option to observe and take it all in. So overall highly recommend attending a future one.

Below are my rough notes from the session. Next time I think I’ll bring an A4 notebook to do one big mind map. I had a smaller notebook and there wasn’t enough room.

Panel: AI versus Testers

Panelists: Gary Parker, Andrew Fullen, Gomathi Ramalingam, Gek Yeo

Host: Robbie Falck

Will testers be replaced by AI?

The testers that embrace AI will replace those testers that do not. It is important we adapt to the technology trends. We have done this in the past with Test Automation, DevOps and will do so with AI. So the core message is that we need to adapt, otherwise there might be limited opportunities for testers if they don’t embrace the technology trends.

We might start seeing job titles change like AI Tester and overall create more testing jobs. This means that we need to enhance our skills we have, like critical thinking.

Core Skills we need to Learn

• Critical thinking
• Adaptability — As mentioned we have seen this before with the likes of Test Automation and DevOps and will continue to adapt.
• True shift left to prevent bugs. Can AI help us here?
• Cynicism — critical thinking.
• Do we need particular specialized skills? The answer is no. Critical thinking is a must.

Negative

• Engineers pasting code from AI. Spend more time reviewing. There was an example where some engineers said that they had “No idea what the code does.”
• We need to think about how much time are we actually saving?
• Worst case scenario is that we need to hit the breaks.
• AI can misunderstand what you’re trying to achieve.

Other Notes

• We have to be careful of biased data. Chat GPT is very biased for example it thinks we all live in cities.
• We need to be open minded. How can we make it better for everyone?
• When do we adopt the AI as a company?
• Tools spoken about — Claude, ChatGPT, Deepseek, (Amplify? — need to find this one)

Summary from the panel

• Use AI as your thought partner with you being the thought leader
• Does it make sense to use it?
• How does testing look for you when adopting AI?
• Be cautious, do your own research.