[alganet]

Since you mentioned AI, I'll also give my perspective on that:

I'm concerned that it will, literally, suck the blood of good engineers to pump into bad ones.

Some 10 years ago, I would tell juniors that donating blood is a good thing to do and something they should aim for. I am not so sure about that anymore. Today I would teach them to sharpen wooden stakes.

I want promising junior developers to survive. That's an important prerequisite for being able to be a good developer. I don't want them to be too naive and die off.

[0xCaponte]

I have a similar view in that sense, I think that at the moment many companies are counting with AI taking over many of the senior level tasks and therefore not investing in that many juniors. If this assumption fails, there will be a lack of qualified seniors to take over when the current batch moves on; there will be juniors but not nearly as prepared or with the amount of experience needed, as they are currently struggling to get into the industry.