Programming really is fascinating as a skill because it can bring so much joy to the practitioner on a day-to-day problem-solving level while also providing much value to companies that are using it to generate profit. How many other professions have this luxury?
As a result, though, I think AI taking over a lot of what we're able to do has the dual issue of making your day to day rough both as a personally-enriching experience but also as a money-making endeavor.
I've been reading The Machine That Changed the World recently and it talks about how Ford's mass production assembly line replaced craftsmen building cars by hand. It made me wonder if AI will end up replacing us programmers in a similar way. Craftsmen surely loved the act of building a vehicle, but once assembly lines came along, it no longer made sense to produce cars in that fashion since more unskilled labor could get the job done faster and cheaper. Will we get to a place where AI is "good enough" to replace most developers? You could always argue that craftspeople could generate better code, but I can see a future where that becomes a luxury and unnecessary if tools do most of the work well enough.
As a result, though, I think AI taking over a lot of what we're able to do has the dual issue of making your day to day rough both as a personally-enriching experience but also as a money-making endeavor.
I've been reading The Machine That Changed the World recently and it talks about how Ford's mass production assembly line replaced craftsmen building cars by hand. It made me wonder if AI will end up replacing us programmers in a similar way. Craftsmen surely loved the act of building a vehicle, but once assembly lines came along, it no longer made sense to produce cars in that fashion since more unskilled labor could get the job done faster and cheaper. Will we get to a place where AI is "good enough" to replace most developers? You could always argue that craftspeople could generate better code, but I can see a future where that becomes a luxury and unnecessary if tools do most of the work well enough.