For smaller projects or short-lived projects, "AI without talented engineer" is a viable choice already.

But a lot of projects are big and long lived.

The difference in complexity between 1K lines of code and 10K lines of code isn't merely 10x. It's usually more like 100x.

So even if AI becomes 10x better than today (which seems reasonable) there's going to be a level of complexity beyond which you still need some kind of talented engineer-type(s) steering the AI.