[StefanWestfal]

Isn't that the nature of tech? In the past most programmers needed to focus on low level details while today most devs kit together libraries and services and yet there are more then ever and salaries are higher then ever. I think nobody that enters tech expects that in 20 years we "code" as we do today but we will still build stuff and need to solve problems... and there are enough problems to solve.

[adventured]

That's pretty much the case. We keep building layers and abstracting away.

Being a prompt wizard won't pay as well as directly writing code for the AI systems. They're different layers. There won't be more people directly developing software than there are today in the US market, there may be more overall jobs in and around the process however (ie the tech industry will continue to expand to more people in terms of employment; benefits will weaken, median pay will fall).

Most software developers will be prompt wizards, with required degrees that say they know how to be effective prompt wizards. Then there will be a lot of supporting roles, oversight roles.

More jobs in the industry, lower skill levels, less pay.

[StefanWestfal]

I think we push complexity forward. I agree in the sense that the pure dev part will require less bandwidth for most but the free bandwidth allows us to push complexity forward into different domains. My father still needed to punch card to code and now we can setup an app with a few clicks world wide that uses NN to solve a task and that all by ourself. So demand will be high for cross domain knowledge like Fullstack/ML + Domain X.

[adventured]

If you're a high skill programmer that has domain knowledge re AI, you'll do very well in the future, whether 5 or 20 years out.

We simultaneously won't need and won't want the majority of software developers that exist today (the sheer number of them), writing code in the future. That would be a bad outcome.

They're going to end up more valuable as prompt wizards and checkpoint decision makers, because the AI will be drastically better at writing code (in all respects) than they could ever be. And they're going to get paid less because more people will be able to do it, software development will become a lot less intimidating as a field. It'll be more mass market as a field, akin to being a nurse (4.2 million registered nurses in the US).