People management was always only a branch of management. However, never would I say that when coding, I'm "managing the computer". It's a weird thing to me. A compiler is a tool, not an unpredictable process I need to manage. I never used that lens in my professional work until LLMs. I'm talking 3 years ago, not 30.
I get that it's cute and philosophical to think everything is management and I'm one to generalize stuff as well ad-nausea. But when people don't find satisfaction in their work anymore and the excuse is "well, think of it as a promotion", that to me is taking the analogy too far because it suits the current trends.
But we're discussing now what it means to do management. We'll just have to agree to disagree and call it a day