The flip side of this is that AI tools can enable much faster learning, so the time to go from junior to senior can potentially become much shorter for people who are motivated.
It could (and ultimately I agree it's probably what they should), but that's not what people are seeing juniors do. They're seeing them blindly trust the AI tools and think they don't have to learn what they're doing. So they're building at best a fragle understanding of the code their writing.
Since the results of that approach are predictably bad, I think it will sort itself out. A junior who works like that is already less productive than an LLM in the hands of a skilled engineer, so there isn't really any reason to keep that junior around. But a junior who is using LLMs to rapidly improve their skills can be seen as a good investment even if it takes them some time to become a net positive on the team.
I agree, but I think it'll take far longer to happen than people expect. Kids are making it all the way through college (at state or regional universities) without needing to adjust this approach at all.
These kids are going to be convinced that it's a valid strategy. I'd be surprised if many didn't claim they were being unfaily discriminated against in their first couple of jobs instead of fixing the behavior.
It depends how you use them. If your goal is learning and understanding, you will use LLMs much differently than if your goal is to produce copy-pastable code with as little effort as possible.
Honestly, I do a bit of both depending on the situation. Sometimes I just want a one-off script that does xyz and I don't really care enough to have a deep understanding of every detail. Other times I'm getting a crash course in some advanced concept and in an hour I have knowledge that previously only someone with years of experience in a niche domain (and a lot of patience for my dumb questions) could have given me.