The capacity of technology is very hard to predict (the future is).
Disappearance of programmers. Right now, you have a lot of programmers, they are not out of job. At the current capacities, they will not be out of job ; to compare with art, I think that pure illustration is a done game. Most prominent people stating that programmers will disappear have vested interests in the AI hype.
Replacement vs enhancement. Right now any programmer is probably using AI. The thing it has impacted is problem solving and information retrieval. See https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1592s82/the_fa...
Side knowledge. Programming (and sometimes solving technical problems) is a very transferable skill, it's about acquiring logic and methodology, understanding machines, cutting down complex problems. Those skills are good and useful.
Alternative. If you stop working on it what else will you do? If it's playing video games or watching tik tok, learn programming! If it's learning something else, will it bring you more value? Is it over a topic that will keep its value within the current trends? That being said, knowledge does not have to be applicable, learning for fun, is a good thing!
Thus, I was ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that there was NO MONEY WHAT-SO-EVER to be made writing computer software. I wanted to be a programmer, but I hedged my bets starting to earn an EE degree in college. Remember, this was right as Bill Gates rose to be one of the richest people on the planet.
So now, it seems there is no future in software, as there didn't seem to be then. It's an illusion. Software is complex, and thus has very complex requirements. Those requirements can't be specified... they can only be discovered. Your job is (as it always has been) to match the problem to the available tools.
In electrical engineering circles, this is called impedance matching, and it's a black art. In that world, there are only 2 independent values to worry about, resistance and reactance, but in software, there are an almost unlimited set of variables, so it's always going to be quite complex, and require you or someone like you, to make those optimizations.
I think the best idea is to learn how to leverage AI and/or robots to create some product or service. AI and robot labor will be cheap within a few years.
But learning programming including how to program AI is a good path still.
The better you are at programming, the better able you are to use AI to produce working software. It becomes a tool that expands what you're capable of doing.
Learning to program well without AI will also train you to be better at thinking and problem solving.
If you want to learn how to program, all of the above are in your favor. Just avoid using AI to learn since you won't be able to tell when it's hallucinating. Only use AI for things you already understand and can verify yourself.
The usefulness of a conductor becomes greater the larger the orchestra becomes, not less.
Now, is software engineering still a viable long term career option? Honestly, probably not (to be fair, I think most white collar jobs will be significantly automated away anyways). But if it's something you're genuinely interested in, I'd say you should still give it a shot.
Until we reach that stage (if ever), technical people will still be needed in the loop – to check that the AI's work is correct, integrates properly with the rest of the system, and meets the requirements. And this leads to the main role of any engineer: figuring out the requirements. In other words, determining what exactly needs to be built.
People, in general, aren’t great at describing things in a precise, unambiguous way – and non-technical people even less so. I don't see this part of the equation being automated anytime soon.
As long as you enjoy figuring things out, solving technical problems, architecting software systems, and understanding software at a deep level, I think there will be work for you for the foreseeable future – no matter how "AI-assisted" it becomes.
As long as you enjoy solving software engineering problems (not just copy pasting lines of code from sof) — you can have a great career.
No serious software engineer with at least 5 years of good hands on experience is worried about it.
Gpt etc is fundamentally not “intelligence” in any valuable sense. It is nothing but advanced and powerful auto-complete for your code.
It will never _replace_ a real engineer.
Ten years ago you could go to code school for 6 months, do a mediocre job and land an entry level job making 90k a year, and so the market was flooded with people who weren’t serious about programming.
So “should I learn to code” use to be similar to “should I learn to ride a bike” or “should I learn to read”. Like yeah, if you could learn to ride a bike and make $90k a year, you should do it.
But I think you need to ask it like you’re asking “should I learn medicine” or “should I learn electrical engineering”.
It’s a discipline, and one that takes commitment and constantly relearning. The old school, I am an instrument that turns instructions into code is over. But if you can master coding, and all of the soft skills that come with figuring out what needs to be done?
Then yeah, you should learn programming.
(This is all about career advice. Coding is fun! If you want to learn coding, learn coding)
As someone new to the field, I don't think you'll get many job offers. The entry level positions all seem dead, and will probably only get deader as AI gets better. It seems to me like career suicide to be learning programming now. IMHO only. In 30 years of programming, I'd never seen the field this bad.
I don't know how the industry expects to make new seniors without a pipeline for juniors, but you don't have to make that your problem too.
If I were you in your shoes, I'd learn something harder to automate (the trades, etc.). Robotics doesn't advance as quickly as software AI, so those jobs probably won't be replaced as quickly as programmers.
TLDR; Barely useful AI costs $5 per "bug fix" and you have to supervise it, that's the lowest compute, cheapest models... the "good" stuff is going to cost thousands per task, there needs to be 10,000:1 improvements in hardware before things really impact the market. However... code churn generated by the AI is likely to increase the need for competent programmers to sort out the mess. ;-)