A developer does more than just write text and that’s all these AI programs can do: generate text. There’s not a single AI that can generate source, attempt to compile it, fix any source errors like the infamous missing semi-colon, and then produce a binary.

Anyway, I think advancement of technologies which generate text can make an individual developer’s task more efficient, e.g. the compiler. But, because of this efficiency on the individual, then more individuals will now be able to take part which means more jobs will be created.

To restate, I don’t think “AI” will make people more productive, it just makes doing the task more productive. This seems like a ridiculous statement, but consider the cotton-gin. Because of the tool, we could throw more and more people at the problem of gathering cotton.

That’s what the development of new tools gets us, more work with the tool that does the job.