I also fail to see how LLMs can turn humans into "biorobots". You can still do all the things you could do before LLMs came along. The economic value of those things just decreased enourmously.
They have to do this because the industry has basically been kicking the aging-workforce can down the road for a few decades since off-shoring and automation outpaced increasing demand, and now they don’t have nearly enough people that even know how to program CNC machines when CAM software falls short.
I have a feeling a lot of displaced software people will go that route, and have a big change in compensation and working conditions in the process.
I've watched my cousin weld on a horse trailer overhead in 105F Texas heat, would be interesting to see the typical SWE step away from an Xbox and do that.
I’ve seen devs say they’d pick up a trade like being a plumber or electrician because their their master electrician cousin gets paid a ton money, probably they imagine for wiring up new residential buildings and changing out light sockets… how long did it take that cousin to get there? In any trade, there’s quite a number of years of low pay, manual labor, cramming into tight spaces in hot attics or through bug infested crawl spaces, factory basements, etc. that most apprentices complete in their early twenties. Nobody gives a shit what you did as a developer and nobody gives a shit how good you are at googling things in most blue collar work environments. Getting experienced enough to have your own business making good money in some job where you need many thousands of work hours to even take a test to get licensed isn’t a lateral move from being a JS toolchain whiz. Even in less structured jobs like working as a bartender — it takes years of barbacking, serving, or bartending in the least desirable jobs (events, corporate spaces) before you get something you can pay rent with.
The fact that you like programming more than welding is nice to know but there's probably also a lot of people who like welding more than progamming.