[crazy_eye]

Nicely put, but too utopian for right now. There is still a place for coding skills in many fields where it may have not mattered before, with the ubiquity of computers in workplaces of all types. That being said, I think the 'teach ALL the people how to code' theme lately is overkill.

[gliese1337]

Too utopian in general, not just right now. The best argument in my opinion for "normal people" learning to program is not so that they can and will instruct their machines, but so that they know how it is done, whether they're the ones to do it or not. It's to instill understanding, so people will have reasonable expectations about their technology, be able to make intelligent decisions regarding it, and not relate to it as magic.

Even if HCI becomes so good that anything can be automated just by asking for it with no human effort involved, it will still be a good idea for people to know why and how it works. And frankly, things will never get that good (people can't even communicate among themselves without misunderstanding, let alone with machines), which makes it important for people to understand what kinds of things their computers can realistically do for them, what they can't, and why that is.