The whole point of programming is automation. Having a tool that would make programming much more efficient is not a failure condition for programmers.

It's called no-code(this time around at least). Quickly turn out a decent-looking app, then hitting a brick wall when the least amount of unexpected requirement turns up. Scares you the first time you see it, but both devs and artists will be fine long term.

The consequences of anyone being able to create any software they want cheaply are so enormous that I think coder employment would be among the least of our concerns.

It already has, and as with art AI, I've seen worse from beginners and it's got certain failure modes and there are copyright/moral rights[0] issues and it is still obviously useful.

[0] I saw this in a few of my UK job contracts in the context of signing away that right, and it seems to be "the right to be identified as the author of a work", but IANAL.

I'm ready to change careers from programmer to AI code prompt writer.