It is really a click bait.
I think the core distinction is important and gets at what LLMs are and are not good at. LLMs are good at translating clear specifications into common programming languages. That is what a programmer, by the BLS’ definition, does. The hard part of being a software dev never has been writing the code.
They are claiming that the act of programming is in the process of being replaced. That seems somewhat likely. However they aren’t saying that overall tech industry jobs nor even software dev jobs are decreasing.
I do agree with your hypothesis though. The article doesn’t even account for the software engineer title either.
IT guy here. Can confirm.
Not even a decade ago, stitching together disparate systems would have entailed identifying and designing the thing we wanted to accomplish, establishing requirements, and relying on an internal coder/programmer to get it done. Today, with Powershell, Python, YAML, REST APIs, webhooks, declarative infrastructure, etc, programmers were already infrequently utilized if they existed within an organization at all; with LLMs, they’re just not needed, provided your Admins/Engies are competent enough not to test in production and can identify when they’re being lied to by a chatbot.
“Computer Programmer”: https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes151251.htm
“Software Developer”: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm
To save the click on what this means specifically:
"In the government’s schema, programmers do the grunt work while the much more numerous — and much faster-growing — software developers enjoy a broader remit. They figure out what clients need, design solutions and work with folks such as programmers and hardware engineers to implement them."